Extraction and characterisation of polyhydroxybutyrate biologically synthesised using mixed microbial cultures

MONTIEL-JARILLO, G. ; CONTRERAS, EDGARDO MARTÍN; LO PRESTI, D.; MANNINA, G.; SUÁREZ-OJEDA, MARÍA EUGENIA; MORALES URREA, DIEGO ALBERTO; CARRERA MUYO, JULIÁN

Venecia

Conferencia; 3 rd IWA Resource Recovery Conference; 2019

IWA

In this work, the effectiveness of several chemicals for polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) extraction from mixed microbial cultures (MMC) was established. The enriched PHB-producing MMC used acetic acid as precursor. The chemical that were tested were the green solvent dimethyl carbonate (DMC), the switchable anionic surfactant NH4-laurate, the surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and the base NH4OH. They were tested on lyophilized biomass containing PHB. Moreover, their efficiencies were compared to chloroform, which is used regularly at lab scale for bioplastic extraction. The highest recovery yield and purity (74±8 % and 100±5%, respectively) were obtained when using NH4-laurate for which operating conditions of the extraction process such as temperature, concentration and contact time were optimized.