Desalinization is an important step for the clown-stream process of biological production of 1,3-proanediol (1,3-PD). Some literatures on desalinization of 1,3-PD fermentation broth are available, but very few ones refer to the recovery and conversion of the salts to high-added value by-product. In this paper, a novel process, including bipolar membrane electrodialysis (EDBM), acid crystallization and base recycling for fermentation was proposed, which could efficiently recover salts from 1,3-propanediol fermentation broth. In this process, EDBM was first employed to obtain the 1,3-PD fermentation broth that meets the requirement for later purification process and recovery acids and NaOH from salts. The optimum operating conditions of EDBM were established by response surface method (RSM). Under the optimum conditions, 1,3-PD recovery, energy consumption, current efficiency and conversion rate of salts were 96.0%, 22.69 W h/kg, 98.66% and 85.1%, respectively. By this novel process, industrial succinic acid was obtained and NaOH was successfully recycled to 1,3-PD fermentation process, realizing the utmost utilization of these salts. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.