Patent ID: 9683076
Date: 2017-06-20
CPC Classifications: C08G,C12P

Claim:
1. A process for recovering and purifying polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) from a cell culture, the process comprising: (a) acidifying the cell culture by adding an aqueous solution of an inorganic or organic acid selected from: sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, nitric acid, acetic acid, citric acid, or mixtures thereof, so as to obtain a pH value less than or equal to 6, and submitting the cell culture to a cell fractionation treatment using high-pressure homogenization at a temperature greater than or equal to 10° C. and less than or equal to 80° C., so as to obtain a PHA suspension; (b) basifying the PHA suspension thus obtained so as to obtain a pH value greater than or equal to 8; (c) diluting the PHA suspension and submitting the diluted PHA suspension to first tangential filtration so as to obtain a concentrated PHA suspension as first retentate and a first aqueous phase as first permeate; (d) submitting the concentrated PHA suspension to bleaching; (e) diluting the PHA suspension after the bleaching and submitting the diluted bleached suspension to second tangential filtration so as to obtain a concentrated bleached PHA suspension as second retentate and a second aqueous phase as second permeate; and (f) submitting the concentrated bleached PHA suspension to drying.