It is also used as an acidulant in the food industry. % is used to induce a sour taste in food products, for example in pickles and sauerkraut. In the food industry, lactic acid with a purity of about 85 wt. Traditionally, lactic acid has applications in the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. This duality in structure allows it to react either as an acid or as an alcohol. It is a weak organic acid with a hydroxyl group and a carboxylic group present on adjacent carbon atoms in the carbon chain. Lactic acid was first isolated in 1780 by Swedish scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele by crystallizing its calcium salt.
#Pd plus chemical process simulation plus#
The process was optimized using sensitivity analysis in Aspen Plus ®. Use of pure lactic acid as an auto-catalyst helped to achieve the required purity as it minimized contamination. Pure methyl lactate obtained from the second stage was then hydrolyzed in the third stage using pure lactic acid as an auto-catalyst to obtain the desired product. A RadFrac column was used for this purpose which also facilitated easy separation of methyl lactate from methanol and water. The second stage consisted of esterification of lactic acid by reactive distillation. First, crude lactic acid was obtained by reacting calcium lactate with sulfuric acid. The process was carried out in three stages. The thermodynamic model used for the process was NRTL – Hayden O’Connell due to the polar nature and non-ideal behavior of the species involved.
The simulation was performed using Aspen Plus ® version 8.2. % on dry basis) from crude lactic acid was simulated. In this work, a sustainable process for the production of polymer grade lactic acid (99 wt. Traditionally, lactic acid has applications in industries such as food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and textiles. Lactic acid is a commonly occurring substance in nature, ranging from existence in micro-organisms to the human body.
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