Biotechnological processes to produce biobased chemicals are promising alternatives to petrochemical routes, as it can overcome the challenges of resource depletion in the future in a sustainable way. Biobased organic acids constitute an important group of building block chemicals that can be produced from renewable resources, and they are with acidic properties that serve as platform chemicals for the production of polymers, food products, coatings, lubricating oils, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, solvents, and various other materials. First production processes of acetic and citric acid date back to 1823 and 1913, respectively. Since then, increasing demand and myriads of novel applications have resulted in a diversified portfolio of different types of organic acids of biomass sources.
There are three main sources of biobased organic acids, namely, i) extracted and separated from plants or agricultural and sideline products in nature, ii) enzymatic method, and iii) microbiological fermentation.
Organic acids are broadly dispersed in nature (animal, plant and microbial sources). Here are some examples of natural organic acids and their sources.
| Sources | Predominant Acids |
|---|---|
| Apples | Malic, quinic, aketoglutaric, oxalacetic, citric, pyruvic, fumaric, lactic and succinic acids |
| Apricots | Malic and citric acids |
| Bananas | Malic, citric, tartaric and traces of acetic and formic acids |
| Blackberries | Isocitric, malic, lactoisocitric, shikimic, quinic, and traces of citric and oxalic acids |
| Blueberries | Citric, malic, glyceric, citramalic, glycolic, succinic, glucuronic, galacturonic, shikimic, quinic, glutamic and aspartic acids |
| Beans | Citric, malic and small amounts of succinic and fumaric acids |
| Broccoli | Malic and citric (3:2) and oxalic and succinic acids |
| Carrots | Malic, citric, isocitric, succinic and fumaric acids |
| Tomatoes | Citric, malic, oxalic, succinic, glycolic, tartaric, phosphoric, hydrochloric, sulfuric, fumaric, pyrrolidinonecarboxylic and galacturonic acids |
Enzyme catalysis, using defined enzymes for organic transformations, has become a common tool in the synthesis of organic acids, both in academia and across the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. For instance, it has been reported that the gallic acid can be prepared by using enzyme with the advantages of high product yield, few consumptions of raw material, and simple flow process.
Metabolic engineering has been enabling development of high performance microbial strains for the efficient production of natural compounds from renewable biomass. Production of organic acids by microbiological fermentation is the preferred method due to its high productivity and environment-friendly procedure. Major types of organic acid produced by microbial activity are citric acid, succinic acid, lactic acid, itaconic acid, lactobionic acid, gluconic acid, fumaric acid, propionic acid, and acetic acid. Below are some examples of organic acids which are produced by microbiological fermentation.
Fig. 1 Overview of the metabolic pathways for production of several acids from renewable resources
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References
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