Recovery of Itaconic Acid by Electrodialysis

Abstract

Itaconic acid is an organic acid produced mainly for non-food purposes. It can be manufactured by biotechnological synthesis using various strains which results in the salt form of the acid. In this work, the separation of sodium itaconate by electrodialysis was studied. Homopolar cation- and anion-selective membranes were applied and the module was operated under a constant voltage. The transport of the acid was followed by on-line ultraviolet and visible absorption spectroscopy, where the detector was installed in the system. The experiments with models of aqueous solutions confirmed that the technique is suitable for the effective recovery of itaconic acid.

Keywords

• ultraviolet and visible absorption spectroscopy
• on-line detection
• monopolar membranes