Application of electrodialysis to glycerate recovery from a glycerol containing model solution and culture broth

Glyceric acid is produced by the conversion of glycerol via bioprocesses. The glycerate recovery from model solutions and from real culture broth was demonstrated by a desalting electrodialysis (ED) method. The addition of several impurities in glycerate model solutions, such as polypepton or yeast extract, did not have significant adverse effects on the whole ED process, and more than 93% of the glycerol added in the model solutions (50–150 g/l) was excluded. Using culture broth of Acetobacter tropicalis containing 14.6 g/l d-glycerate, the d-glycerate recovery and the energy consumption were 99.4% and 0.24 kWh/kg, respectively.