(293d) Extraction and Economics of Lipid Production From Lipomyces Starkeyi Grown On Starch

In the production process of microbial lipid by the oleaginous yeast Lipomyces starkeyi, sweet potato starch is available as waste from processing plants as a liquid or slurry mixture like in the canning process, 20% of the sweet potato ends up in waste streams. Sweet potato waste can take various forms such as culled potatoes, peel waste, screen waste, and several others. However, the cost of Solvent in lipid extraction from yeast fermentation broth is a major costs contributing factor in lipid production. In this work, the extraction of lipid from the yeast fermentation broth was studied experimentally as well as in an Aspen Plus simulation.  Various polar and nonpolar solvents were evaluated individually as well as in mixtures to maximize the neutral lipid extraction. These results along with an Aspen simulation to predict the recovery of solvents and process economics will be presented.