The Procter Gamble Company

Kaneka Corporation

Kenneth Yee

Karunakaran Narasimhan

Angella Christine Cearley

Isao Noda

Yasuyoshi Ueda

Koichi Kinoshita

Fumio Osakada

Donald Eugene Levengood

Guo-Qiang Chen

Processes for the extraction of PHAs from biomass, said processes comprising: combining the biomass containing the PHAs with a single main solvent to form a biomass liquor; heating the biomass liquor to at least partially solubilize the PHAs from the biomass to form a PHA liquor; separating the biomass from the PHA liquor to form a PHA-enriched liquor; evaporating from 0% to about 50% of the single main solvent from the PHA-enriched liquor to form a solvent vapor and a concentrated PHA-enriched liquor; and cooling the concentrated PHA-enriched liquor to form precipitated PHAs and an impure solvent liquor. Optionally, further recovering the precipitated PHAs from the impure solvent liquor by filtration under pressure. A PHA-enriched liquor and a concentrated PHA-enriched liquor.

Solvent extraction of polyhydroxyalkanoates from biomass

The present invention provides a method for easily obtaining a biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate by a solvent extraction method. A method for producing a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal comprises mixing a solution of a polyhydroxyalkanoate in a good solvent with a poor solvent at 50 to 130&#xb0; C. to precipitate a polyhydroxyalkanoate.

Method for producing polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal

The present invention provides a method for conveniently obtaining a biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate by a solvent extraction method. A method for producing a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal comprises precipitating a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal using a monohydric alcohol having 4 to 10 carbon atoms as a extraction solvent, keeping a polyhydroxyalkanoate solution containing 0.1 to 10% by weight of water relative to the total amount of the solution warm at 70&#xb0; C. or higher, and cooling the solution to below 70&#xb0; C.

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Kenneth Yee