Recovery of monosaccharides from dilute acid corncob hydrolysate by nanofiltration: modeling and optimization

In this work nanofiltration technology has been employed for removal of inhibitors and recovery of monosaccharides from dilute acid lignocellulose hydrolysates. The influences of feed solution pH, permeate flux, and Na₂SO₄ concentration on the rejection of monosaccharides and inhibitors were investigated. The results showed that the pH for the separation of carboxylic acids and furans from monosaccharides should be as low as possible. With increase of Na₂SO₄ concentration carboxylic acid and furan rejection decreased. Subsequently, the Donnan steric pore and dielectric exclusion model coupled with mass balance was used to predict the rejection of solutes at different permeate fluxes. In order to select a suitable permeate flux and operating time, multi-objective optimization was carried out to obtain the maximum total inhibitor removal efficiency, the maximum monosaccharide recovery rate, and the minimum water consumption. The optimal operating conditions were then verified using the real hydrolysate as feed solutions. More specifically, for the treatment of 6 L of a hydrolysate solution, 13 L of water and a treatment time of 35 min were required. This process allowed the removal of 90% inhibitors, while 93.55% glucose, 90.75% xylose, and 90.53% arabinose were recovered. Finally, a batch column equipped with a strong acid cation exchange resin was employed to recover the monosaccharides from the hydrolysate. Using water as an eluent, 95.37% of the sulfuric acid and 94.87% of the monosaccharides were recovered. In all, we demonstrated that the combination of nanofiltration with electrolyte exclusion chromatography is a promising integrated process for the recovery of monosaccharides and inorganic acids from dilute acid corncob hydrolysates.