TY - JOUR
T1 - Polyhydroxyalkanoates from A Mixed Microbial Culture
T2 - Extraction Optimization and Polymer Characterization
AU - Rodrigues, Ana Marta
AU - Franca, Rita Dias Guardão
AU - Dionísio, Madalena
AU - Sevrin, Chantal
AU - Grandfils, Christian
AU - Reis, Maria A. M.
AU - Lourenço, Nídia Dana
N1 - Funding Information:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDP%2F04378%2F2020/PT#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDB%2F04378%2F2020/PT#
This work was funded by the INGREEN project that has received funding from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 838120. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio-based Industries Consortium. This work was financed by national funds from Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences—UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy—i4HB. A.M. Rodrigues acknowledges the financial support of FCT through the PhD grant 2020.08574.BD.Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge Cristiana Torres for her support in the CCRD.
Funding Information:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDP%2F04378%2F2020/PT#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDB%2F04378%2F2020/PT#
Funding: This work was funded by the INGREEN project that has received funding from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 838120. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio-based Industries Consortium. This work was financed by national funds from FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecno-logia, I.P., in the scope of the project and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy—i4HB. A.M. Rodrigues acknowledges the financial support of FCT through the PhD grant 2020.08574.BD.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/5/25
Y1 - 2022/5/25
N2 - Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are biopolymers with potential to replace conventional oil-based plastics. However, PHA high production costs limit their scope of commercial applications. Downstream processing is currently the major cost factor for PHA production but one of the least investigated aspects of the PHA production chain. In this study, the extraction of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) produced at pilot scale by a mixed microbial culture was performed using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) as digestion agents of non-PHA cellular mass. Optimal conditions for digestion with NaOH (0.3 M, 4.8 h) and NaClO (9.0%, 3.4 h) resulted in polymers with a PHA purity and recovery of ca. 100%, in the case of the former and ca. 99% and 90%, respectively, in the case of the latter. These methods presented higher PHA recoveries than extraction by soxhlet with chloroform, the benchmark protocol for PHA extraction. The polymers extracted by the three methods presented similar PHA purities, molecular weights and polydispersity indices. Using the optimized conditions for NaOH and NaClO digestions, this study analyzed the effect of the initial intracellular PHA content (40–70%), biomass concentration (20–100 g/L) and biomass pre-treatment (fresh vs. dried vs. lyophilized) on the performance of PHA extraction by these two methods.
AB - Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are biopolymers with potential to replace conventional oil-based plastics. However, PHA high production costs limit their scope of commercial applications. Downstream processing is currently the major cost factor for PHA production but one of the least investigated aspects of the PHA production chain. In this study, the extraction of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) produced at pilot scale by a mixed microbial culture was performed using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) as digestion agents of non-PHA cellular mass. Optimal conditions for digestion with NaOH (0.3 M, 4.8 h) and NaClO (9.0%, 3.4 h) resulted in polymers with a PHA purity and recovery of ca. 100%, in the case of the former and ca. 99% and 90%, respectively, in the case of the latter. These methods presented higher PHA recoveries than extraction by soxhlet with chloroform, the benchmark protocol for PHA extraction. The polymers extracted by the three methods presented similar PHA purities, molecular weights and polydispersity indices. Using the optimized conditions for NaOH and NaClO digestions, this study analyzed the effect of the initial intracellular PHA content (40–70%), biomass concentration (20–100 g/L) and biomass pre-treatment (fresh vs. dried vs. lyophilized) on the performance of PHA extraction by these two methods.
KW - chemical digestion
KW - design of experiments
KW - PHA extraction
KW - polymer properties
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131367965&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/polym14112155
DO - 10.3390/polym14112155
M3 - Article
C2 - 35683828
AN - SCOPUS:85131367965
VL - 14
JO - Polymers
JF - Polymers
IS - 11
M1 - 2155
ER -