Fumaric acid: production and separation.

Fumaric acid is a valuable compound used in foods, beverages, detergents, animal feed, pharmaceuticals and miscellaneous industrial products. It is produced on a large scale by the petrochemical route but the current tendency is towards implementing "green production" and environmental friendly technologies like biotechnological production of fumaric acid using low-cost raw materials. In this context, numerous studies focus on improving the fermentation process not only by using renewable raw material and genetically modified microorganisms, but also by developing and applying different downstream techniques for easy recovery of fumaric acid from the fermented broth. This review presents the main methods for production and separation of fumaric acid, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of these and the potential economic impact in industry.