Citric Acid Purification by Simulated Moving Bed Adsorption with Methanol as Desorbent

ABSTRACT

This work aims to study the citric acid recovery from an aqueous mixture by an adsorption process using a Reillex® 425 resin as adsorbent and methanol as desorbent. A theoretical model has been developed to describe the aqueous citric acid adsorption on Reillex® 425 and its desorption with methanol. An SMB process for recovering citric acid from a citric acid/water mixture containing 10% w/w of citric acid using methanol as desorbent has been designed and optimized, with purity above 99% and recovery above 95%. An evaporation–crystallization method is designed to recover citric acid and methanol from the extract.

KEYWORDS:

• Citric acid
• Reillex 425
• methanol
• adsorption separation
• simulated moving bed

Acknowlegment

Financial support from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain through project CTM2017-84033-R is gratefully acknowledged.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad [grant number CTM2017-84033-R].