Solvent-impregnated resins as an in situ product recovery tool for phenol recovery from Pseudomonas putida S12TPL fermentations.

The sustainable production of fine/bulk chemicals is often hampered by product toxicity and inhibition to the producing micro-organisms. Consequently, the product must be removed from the micro-organisms' environment. To achieve this, so-called solvent-impregnated resins (SIRs) as well as commercial resins have been added to a Pseudomonas putida S12TPL fermentation that produces phenol as a model compound from glucose. The SIRs contained an ionic liquid which extracts phenol effectively. It was observed that the addition of these particles resulted in an increased phenol production of more than a fourfold while the commercial resin (XAD-4) which is widely used in aromatic removal from aqueous phases, only gave a 2.5-fold increase in volumetric production.