Bioresour. Technol.

Succinic acid was produced in a novel membrane-based fermentation and separation integrated system. With this integrated system, product inhibition was alleviated by removing acids and replenishing fresh broth. High cell density maintain for a longer time from 75 to 130 h and succinic acid concentration increased from 53 to 73 g/L. In the developed separation process, succinic acid was crystallized at a recovery of 85-90%. The purity of the obtained succinic acid crystals reached 99.4% as found by HPLC and H-1 NMR analysis. A crystallization experiment indicated that among by-products glucose had a negative effect on succinic acid crystallization. Poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) was synthesized using the purified succinic acid and H-1 NMR analysis confirmed that the composition of the synthesized PBS is in agreement with that from petro-based succinic acid. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Succinic acid was produced in a novel membrane-based fermentation and separation integrated system. With this integrated system, product inhibition was alleviated by removing acids and replenishing fresh broth. High cell density maintain for a longer time from 75 to 130 h and succinic acid concentration increased from 53 to 73 g/L. In the developed separation process, succinic acid was crystallized at a recovery of 85-90%. The purity of the obtained succinic acid crystals reached 99.4% as found by HPLC and H-1 NMR analysis. A crystallization experiment indicated that among by-products glucose had a negative effect on succinic acid crystallization. Poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) was synthesized using the purified succinic acid and H-1 NMR analysis confirmed that the composition of the synthesized PBS is in agreement with that from petro-based succinic acid. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved