In this work, lactic acid purification by short path evaporation (SPE) was evaluated using central composite experimental design. The influences of the evaporator temperature (from 86.7 to 177.3 degrees C) and condenser temperature (from 7.5 to 24.5 degrees C) on distilled percentage, and lactic acid purity and recovery at the distillate stream were studied. In the range of study, lactic acid purity obtained at 1 kPa, using evaporator temperature of 86.7 degrees C and condenser temperature of 16 degrees C presented the highest lactic acid purity which was about 11 times lactic acid concentration higher than the initial content in raw material.