Green Biorefinery Upper Austria – Pilot Plant operation

An overview of the first results with the operation of the Pilot Plant Green Biorefinery Upper Austria is presented. Grass silage juice, as a renewable resource, was treated with membrane based and displacement chromatography (ion exchange) processes to manufacture two products, namely a lactic acid enriched and an amino acids enriched solution. Due to the Pilot Plant scale each process step was means-tested for applications, product composition and yield in detail. After prefiltration with an ultrafiltration, a hybrid process, comprising nanofiltration, reverse osmosis and electrodialysis, and an ion exchange device, were used for the production. Specific parameters for each operation unit where calculated and designed for an evaluation of the whole process. By realising the present process configuration, yields about 27% for lactic acid enriched solution and up to 73% for the amino acid solution referred to the silage juice raw material were gained, respectively.