Recovery of lactic acid from the pretreated fermentation broth based on a novel hyper-cross-linked meso-micropore resin: Modeling

•A novel hyper-cross-linked meso-micropore resin was used for recovery of LA.•Good separation was obtained among LA, Glu and Ac ternary-mixture.•Separation mechanism of the ternary-mixture on the novel resin was investigated.•TDM coupled with the competitive M-Langmuir isotherm was chosen as a suitable model. [Display omitted] An innovative benign process for recovery lactic acid from its fermentation broth is proposed using a novel hyper-cross-linked meso-micropore resin and water as eluent. This work focuses on modeling the competitive adsorption behaviors of glucose, lactic acid and acetic acid ternary mixture and explosion of the adsorption mechanism. The characterization results showed the resin had a large BET surface area and specific pore structure with hydrophobic properties. By analysis of the physicochemical properties of the solutes and the resin, the mechanism of the separation is proposed as hydrophobic effect and size-exclusion. Subsequently three chromatographic models were applied to predict the competitive breakthrough curves of the ternary mixture under different operating conditions. The pore diffusion was the major limiting factor for the adsorption process, which was consistent with the BET results. The novel HD-06 resin can be a good potential adsorbent for the future SMB continuous separation process.