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Fumaric acid: production and separation

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Abstract

Fumaric acid is a valuable compound used in foods, beverages, detergents, animal feed, pharmaceuticals and miscellaneous industrial products. It is produced on a large scale by the petrochemical route but the current tendency is towards implementing “green production” and environmental friendly technologies like biotechnological production of fumaric acid using low-cost raw materials. In this context, numerous studies focus on improving the fermentation process not only by using renewable raw material and genetically modified microorganisms, but also by developing and applying different downstream techniques for easy recovery of fumaric acid from the fermented broth. This review presents the main methods for production and separation of fumaric acid, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of these and the potential economic impact in industry.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Grant PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016-0100 authorized by The National Council for Scientific Research - Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (CNCS-UEFISCDI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Protection “Cristofor Simionescu”, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iaşi, Iasi, Romania

    Roxana-Andreea Ilica, Lenuţa Kloetzer & Dan Caşcaval

  2. Faculty of Medical Bioengineering, “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi, Iasi, Romania

    Anca-Irina Galaction

Authors
  1. Roxana-Andreea Ilica
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  2. Lenuţa Kloetzer
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  3. Anca-Irina Galaction
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  4. Dan Caşcaval
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Correspondence to Lenuţa Kloetzer.

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Ilica, RA., Kloetzer, L., Galaction, AI. et al. Fumaric acid: production and separation. Biotechnol Lett 41, 47–57 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-018-2628-y

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