Isolation of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) from bacterial biomass using soap made of waste cooking oil

The aim of this work was to develop a soap-based method for the isolation poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) from bacterial biomass. consisted adding soap derived waste cooking oil concentrated (25%) biomass suspension, heating and centrifugal separation. Purity above 95% could be achieved with soap:cell dry mass ratios at least 0.125 g/g, making comparable other surfactant-based protocols. Molecular weights Mw products all experiments were between 350 450 kDa, being high enough future material applications. Addition hydrochloric acid wastewater led precipitation part non-P3HB cell mass. resulting precipitate utilized as carbon source in production increased substrate-to-P3HB conversion.