S. MOHAPATRA, D. P. SAMANTARAY AND S. M. SAMANTARAY
Abstract
Polyhydroxyalkanoates are biopolyesters deposited intracellular as carbon and energy resources by bacterial species such as Bacillus thuriengiensis RKD-12. Many recovery processes have been described such as sodium hypochlorite, SDS and enzymatic digestion has been reported. Moreover, the purity of extracted PHAs is higher in hypochlorite digestion method than other method. This research focuses on an effort to enhance the recovery of PHAs by solubilisation of non-PHA material using sodium hypochlorite digestion and multi, di and mono solvent extraction method. Higher (1.11g/L) amount of PHAs was recovered by using sodium hypochlorite digestion and multi solvent extraction process. FTIR spectroscopy of extracted PHAs by multi, di and mono solvent extraction process indicate presence of functional group C=O at 1737cm-1, 1718cm-1 and 1677cm-1 respectively reflecting PHB, the most common monomer of PHA.