Fermentation Based Sugar-Alcohol Downstream Processing: A Review

Abstract

Abstract Sugar alcohols, such as sorbitol, xylitol, and arabitol, are natural sweeteners with comparable sweetness to sucrose but have lower calories. Besides, they have unique characteristics such as teeth-friendly and low glycemic index, which are attractive for food industries. The vast availability of lignocelluloses biomass waste offers the potential of sugar alcohol production from lignocelluloses, for example, via hydrolysis and fermentation. Besides containing sugar alcohol, fermentation broth also contains other substances: biomass cells, metabolic products, leftover substrates, and inorganic minerals. Downstream processing is necessary to process further the produced sugar alcohol in fermentation broth to the commercial crystal of sugar alcohol. This paper reviews the crystallization of sugar alcohol and the preceding processes necessary to obtain high-quality sugar alcohol crystals. In particular, membrane-based processes to pretreat the fermentation broth before the crystallization process is proposed.