The production of Erythritol can be divided into two methods: chemical synthesis and biosynthesis.
Chemical Synthesis
The chemical synthesis method can react butylene glycol with hydrogen peroxide, then mix its aqueous solution with active nickel catalyst and add the inhibitor ammonia water, which will permeate hydrogen at about 0.5 MPa, and get Erythritol products after hydrogenation. However, the production efficiency of the chemical method is low, and industrial production has not yet been realized.
Microbial fermentation
The production of Erythritol by fermentation method began in the 1990s, and the production of Erythritol by microbial fermentation method has been widely used in the world.Carbon sources for Erythritol production include alkanes, monosaccharides and disaccharides. Glucose, fructose, mannose and sucrose are all good carbon sources for Erythritol production, among which D-mannose has the highest conversion rate of 31.5%.However, due to cost factors, at present, mainly starchy raw materials such as wheat or maize are degraded by enzymes to produce glucose, which is fermented and produced by high osmotic resistance yeast or other strains. Erythrosol can be produced by Candida spp., Glomus spp., Trichosporidium spp., Trigonella spp., Pichia spp.The industrial production process of Erythritol fermentation method is as follows: starch-liquefaction-saccharification-glucose production strain fermentation, filtration, monochrome separation, purification, concentration, crystallization, separation and drying, and finally Erythritol is obtained with an average yield of about 50%.The research shows that Erythritol fermentation method is affected by many factors, such as the change of osmotic pressure obviously affects the production of polyols, inorganic salts Mn2+, Cu2+ can improve the yield of Erythritol, oxygen, temperature have an impact on its yield, compared with chemical synthesis method, fermentation method has more production advantages.