The pernicious affect of plastic originating from petroleum-based sources has been an growing risk to our surroundings. Amongst a number of methods examined and implied to handle these plastic wastes, one promising different is switching to biodegradable polymers. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a category of microbial polyesters which can be biodegradable, biocompatible and a beautiful different for future packaging functions. They provide an strategy to carbon neutrality and assist a extra sustainable industrialization. Nonetheless, as these microbial polymers are saved intracellularly, growth of downstream processes for extraction and purification are important and are probably the most cost-intensive steps. A serious disadvantage in many of the current state-of-the-art is using harsh natural solvents which contributes to the non-eco-friendliness of the processes. This work proposes another, sustainable PHA downstream course of comprising using a inexperienced solvent. Biomass with an intracellular PHA content material of ca. 49% (gPHA/gVSS) produced by blended cultures was used on this examine. A brand new hydrophobic pure deep eutectic solvent (hydrophobic NADES), Thymol : Vanillin (8 : 2 molar ratio) was synthesised and used because the extraction solvent whereas 1-heptanol was used because the purification solvent. Additionally, completely different intensities of sonication have been utilized to help the cell wall rupture for the environment friendly launch of PHAs. The optimised course of yielded ∼99% polymer purity and restoration of ∼42% and didn’t alter the polymer composition. Moreover, after profitable extraction and purification of PHA, the natural solvents (hydrophobic NADES and 1-heptanol) used might be recycled or reused as per end-user necessities.
