Menno Houben

The ReCoVR project aims to develop electrically driven separation technologies for the recovery of valuable resources.  To do so, novel functional materials need to be designed to selectively manipulate the molecules or materials of interest via electric stimuli. Lactic acid is a important material that has major applications in the food industry, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Lactic acid is often produced by fermentation processes, but during conventional fermentation especially calcium lactate salts are produced instead of lactic acid. Electrodialysis with bipolar membranes (EDBM) has the potential to convert lactate salts into lactic acid without the introduction of other chemical reagents. Therefore, the goal of this research is to design novel bipolar membranes that allow for high water dissociation rates and to investigate the production of lactic acid from lactate salts in a electrodialysis process with these novel bipolar membranes.