Integrated process development of a reactive extraction concept for itaconic acid and application to a real fermentation broth.

Itaconic acid (IA) has a high potential to be used as a bio-based platform chemical and its biocatalytic production via fermentation has significantly improved within the last decade. Additionally downstream processing using reactive extraction (RE) was described, potentially enabling a more efficient sustainable bioprocess producing IA. The bottleneck to overcome is the connection of up- and downstream processing, caused by lack of biocompatibility of the RE systems and direct application to fermentation broth.