Produção de ácido lático: panorama de melhorias de processos

Abstract

Lactic acid is a well consolidated chemichal with application at food, pharmaceutical, textile and polymer industries amongst others which can be produced from many renewable being found at two stereoisomers. With the intent to make the productive chain of this acid more sustainable, the acid lactic industry must overcome many challenges in the next years. Among these challenges, stand the use of substrates that compete with food, low effectiveness of conversion of non conventional substrates by microrganisms, low productivity and high cost for pure substrates and purification methods of lactic acid, since its polymeric form polylactic acid (PLA) demands high purity and, with increased demand, high productivities. In order to create an overview of lactic acid production, this search was specified in four branches: microrganisms used in lactic fermentation, renewable substrates, process and fermentation broth’s purification. The ProKnow-C methodological instrument was used to create a relevant article’s portfolio, with analysis of history and current trends. Besides that, a bibliometric analysis was made based on the relevance of articles, authors and journals used for writing the review. By the end, it was noted that the integration betwenn bioprocess, chemichal and biochemichal engineering, advanced separation processes and polymerization are capable of bringing the full potential of lactic acid. It is safe to highlight that purification techniques have been mainly studied for being part of the higher costs of the process and still are a distinguished path for future research, same as for the use of renewable substrates such as agroindustrial effluents and residues. Additionally, it was noted a difficulty in defining best parameters since they are very particular to each fermentation depending on, as examples, geographical places and the availability of low cost substrate and advanced techniques of purification and genetic engineering. Therefore, understanding the overview of the productive path and process improvements is important for the process adaptation to the conditions and goals of its proponents.