Separation optimization for the recovery of phenyl ethyl alcohol

Phenyl ethyl alcohol is a compound that occurs naturally in flower petals a nd in many common beverages, such as beer. Desire for the floral, rose-like notes imparted by phenyl ethyl alcohol has created a unique niche for this chemical in flavor and fragrance industries. Phenyl ethyl alcohol can be p roduced by Saccharomyces cerevisiae via bioconversion. Often this method of production results in extremely low yields, thus placing a great deal of i mportance on recovery and purification of the valuable metabolite. To determine the best method for recovering the chemical, a primary recover y step and a secondary recovery step were developed. The primary recovery s tep consisted of comparing dead-end filtration with crossflow ultrafiltrati on. Crossflow ultrafiltration was ultimately selected to filter the ferment ation broth because of its high flow rates and low affinity for the product . The secondary recovery step consisted of a comparison of liquid-liquid ex traction and hydrophobic resin recovery. The hydrophobic resin was selected because of its higher rate of recovery and a higher purity than the liquid -liquid extraction, the current practice of Brown-Forman.