Continuous ethanol fermentation of concentrated sugar solutions coupled with membrane distillation using a PTFE module

Continuous ethanol fermentation of concentrated glucose and molasses solutions was coupled with membrane distillation using a PTFE ethanol stripping module. Experimental results indicated that the PTFE module can remove a high concentration of ethanol from the fermentation broth and thus maintain a low ethanol concentration in the broth, thereby alleviating the problem of product inhibition. Accordingly, the product yield and the specific ethanol production rate increased. During the continuous fermentation runs, long-time operation using the PTFE module was found to be possible (i.e. 430 h using the glucose medium and 695 h using the molasses medium) and no significant change in the ethanol separation performance of the PTFE module was observed. Although cell flocculation became undetectable when a concentrated molasses medium containing 316 g/l sugar solution was used, the ethanol separation performance of the ethanol stripper was not adversely affected by the presence of the free cells. This suggests that clogging of the membrane pores by cells or other particulates is not a major problem when using the PTFE module in continuous ethanol fermentation.