Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) can be extracted from mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) by means of dimethyl carbonate (DMC) or combination of DMC and sodium hypochlorite (NaClO). The protocol based on DMC, a green solvent never used before for the extraction of PHAs from MMC, allows an overall polymer recovery of 63%; also the purity and the molecular weight of the recovered polymers are good (98% and 1.2 MDa, respectively). The use of NaClO pretreatment before DMC extraction increases the overall PHA recovery (82%) but lowers the mean molecular weight to 0.6-0.2 MDa. A double extraction with DMC results to be the method of choice for the recovery of high quality PHAs from attractive but challenging MMCs.
Keywords: Dimethyl carbonate; Mixed microbial cultures; Polyhydroxyalkanoates; Polymer extraction.
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