Fumaric
acid is a dicarboxylic acid applied in food industry and
in some polymers. Currently, its fermentative production from renewable
resources is receiving much attention, and crystallization is used
to recover it. To determine the window of operation for crystallization
from multicomponent fermentation mixtures, the aqueous solubilities
of fumaric acid and its sodium salts were investigated. For fumaric
acid, sodium hydrogen fumarate, and sodium fumarate, solubilities
and pH increased in this order because of increasing polarity and
dissociation. A mathematical model was developed to predict crystal
type and amount as function of temperature and pH. The effect of glucose
(up to 3.0 mmol·mol–1) on the solubility can
be neglected, but ethanol (1.0 mmol·mol–1)
slightly increased the solubility of fumaric acid and significantly
decreased the solubility of the sodium salts, because the aqueous
solution becomes less polar upon ethanol addition but not upon glucose
addition.