Capillary microreactors for lactic acid extraction: experimental and modelling study

Lactic acid is an important biobased chemical and, among others, is used for the production of poly-lactic acid. Down-stream processing using state of the art technology is energy intensive and leads to the formation of large amounts of salts. In this presentation, experimental and modeling studies on an alternative down stream processing methodology, involving reactive liquid-liquid extraction in a capillary micro reactor using tri-n-octylamine (TOA) in n-octanol as the extractant phase, is provided, The experimental results were successfully modeled using a mass transfer model involving an instantaneous reaction between lactic acid and TOA.