Fractionation of Extracellular Polymeric Substances by Aqueous Three-Phase Partitioning Systems.

Autor: Antunes EC; Wetsus-European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Oostergoweg 9, 8911MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.; Sustainable Process Technology Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 Enschede, The Netherlands., Cintra B; Wetsus-European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Oostergoweg 9, 8911MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands., Bredel M; Wetsus-European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Oostergoweg 9, 8911MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands., Temmink H; Wetsus-European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Oostergoweg 9, 8911MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.; Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University and Research, Bornse Weilanden 9, 6708 Wageningen, The Netherlands., Schuur B; Sustainable Process Technology Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 Enschede, The Netherlands.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Industrial & engineering chemistry research [Ind Eng Chem Res] 2024 Jun 06; Vol. 63 (24), pp. 10748-10760. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jun 06 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.4c00840
Abstrakt: Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are natural polymers secreted by microorganisms and represent a key chemical for the development of a range of circular economy applications. The production of EPS comes with notable challenges such as downstream processing. In this work, a three-phase partitioning (TPP) system was investigated as a fractionation technique for the separation of polysaccharides and proteins, both present in the EPS culture broth. The effect of the type of phase-forming compounds (alcohol, polymer, or ionic liquid, in combination with salt) and its concentration were evaluated and compared to the results previously obtained with model systems. The recyclability of phase-forming compounds used to form the fractionation platform was assessed by ultrafiltration. The best fractionation of EPS was achieved using a TPP system composed of 23 wt % ethanol and 25% K 3 C 6 H 5 O 7 as 82% EPS-PS partitioned to the salt-rich/bottom phase, and 76% EPS-PN was recovered as an interfacial precipitate, which could be readily resolubilized in water. This represented an increase of 1.24 and 2.83-fold in the purity of EPS-PS and EPS-PN, respectively, in relation to the initial feed concentration. Finally, high recovery yields of phase-forming compounds (>99%) and fractionated EPS (>80%) were obtained using ultrafiltration/diafiltration (UF/DF) as the regeneration technique. The substantial fractionation yields, selectivity, and recyclability of the phase-forming compounds confirm the potential of TPP systems in combination with UF/DF as the separation method for real biopolymer mixtures. Key contributions of this study include the demonstration of the applicability of a readily scalable and cost-effective separation technique for the fractionation of EPS from real EPS-containing broths, while also the limitations of prescreening with model systems became clear through the observed deviating trends between model system studies and real broth studies.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest.
(© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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