Investigations on the separating characteristics of different crystalline amino acid systems

Crystallization as downstream process subsequent to biotechnological synthesis, is widely used in the production of amino acids. Due to this operation, a product is gained that can be stored and transported easily, as well as high selectivity is offered. Subsequent to the crystallization, the formed solids have to be separated from the broth using a solid-liquid-separation-step. Due to short product life cycles, temporary fluctuations in output markets and continuous new product development a fast adaptation to the market demand is required. Thus, an acceleration in process development is aimed. A possible way to enable this, is the modularization of the miniplant system. Hereby, the expensive construction of the pilot-plant can be avoided and the process can be performed closely to production with only a small account of required material and space. Thus, production processes for new products can be developed fast and efficiently in small scale and can easily be scaled up. Flexibility, robustness and a continuous production are the demands for the solid-liquid-separation process. Furthermore, it should be possible to wash the product during the separation process. On the current state a continuous filtration system seems to be the suitable plant for the required process. For the design of the plant and the choice of the appropriate operating conditions, in a first step the comparative examination of the filtration characteristics of different amino acids, as well as different particle size distributions and crystals morphologies are performed. For this the filtration and washing characteristics of different amino acids are set into relation to one another. Thus, basic knowledge of plant design and the modular operating of the solid-liquid-separation-step can be gained