Recovery of a natural colorant of industrial application from the fermentation broth using aqueous biphasic systems with ionic liquids

Abstract

The world consumption of natural colorants to substitute the synthetic compounds is growing. In this context, the interest in the production of natural colorants from natural sources, namely dyes, is increasing, mainly the colorants produced by microorganisms. These colorants are described by high growth rates, allowing high yields and a large range of available colorants. This concern is originated by the large number of problems associated to the security of industrial products composed of synthetic colorants in several industries, such as food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies. One of the most important and, at the same time, expensive step in the production of natural colorants is their separation from the fermentation broth contaminants. Thus, the search for new biocompatible separation systems with higher recovery capacities is increasing. These separation processes should be non-toxic for the target compound, the secondary products and also for the organism used in the fermentation. This project intends to use the liquid-liquid extraction, through the use of aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) based in biocompatible ionic liquids (ILs) in the extraction of a natural colorant. These ABS will be prepared and applied in a partition study using a natural colorant, aiming an adequate selection of the best ABS with the higher extraction capacities. Consequently, the selected ABS will be also utilized to recover the same natural colorant from the fermentation broth. (AU)