Halal Surfactant and Environmental Friendly Solvent for Reverse Micelles

• Main Author: S.H. Mohd-Setapar
• Format: Conference Paper
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Halal; Bio-surfactant; Reverse micelles; Plant-based solvent
• Online Access: http://ddms.usim.edu.my/handle/123456789/6125

Solvent extraction (liquid-liquid extraction) is the most common method used in downstream processing of antibiotics due to its effectiveness and favourable economics. The process is a well known technique which is readily scaleable and can be operated on a continuous basis. Despite the efficiency, solvent extraction has several difficulties which can cause problems such as final product contamination, low extraction yield, clogging of equipment, high alcohol usage, and high solvent losses. Reverse micelles consist of three components: amphiphilic surfactant molecules, an aqueous phase, and a non-polar organic solvent. The polar heads of the surfactant are directed towards the interior of a watercontaining sphere, whereas the aliphatic tails are oriented toward the non-polar organic phase. It has the ability to extract a variety of bio-molecules such as proteins into nanometre-size water pools surrounded by a monolayer of surfactant. The apparent success of research on protein extraction from the aqueous phase using reverse micelle provides motivation to study the solubilisation of Clavulanic acid using environmental friendly solvents and halal bio-surfactant. Virgin coconut oil (VCO) and soy oil are used as the organic solvents, and bio-surfactant is isolated from waste soybean oil. The bio-surfactant is found to have lower toxicity, higher biodegradability, better environmental. compatibility and higher specific activity at extreme temperatures, pH levels and salinity than chemical surfactant. Furthermore, this project is also concerned of using plant-based solvent instead of volatile organic solvent since most organic solvent are potentially toxic and unacceptable for pharmaceutical industries. A part from that, there still no research reported on reverse micelle using environmentally surfactant and solvent. Therefore, solvents used in this study are "green" and halal alternative for the replacement of volatile organic solvents in liquid-liquid extractions.