Rapid and efficient recovery of C-phycocyanin from highly turbid Spirulina platensis algae using stirred fluidized bed ion exchange chromatography

An efficient process for the direct extraction of CPC (Cyanobacteria-phycocyanin) from highly turbid Spirulina platensis cell homogenate that uses stirred fluidized bed adsorption (SFBA) technique has been developed. STREAMLINE DEAE (ion exchange) adsorbent was used to evaluate the optimal adsorption and elution conditions of CPC in small packed beds. When the SFBA process was employed to extract CPC from 10% (dry weight, g/mL) disrupted algae, dynamic binding efficiency, recovery yield and purification factor of CPC were determined to be 64.25%, 59.42% and 3.0, respectively, in a single step. However, as the highly concentrated feedstock was diluted to 1%, dynamic binding efficiency and recovery yield of CPC increases to 92.84% and 90.64%, respectively, with a purification factor of 2.7. A comparison of purification performance of CPC has been made between expanded bed adsorption (EBA) and stirred fluidized bed adsorption (SFBA) processes. Our experimental results showed that the productivity of CPC in SFBA process (7.52 mg/mL) was higher than that the conventional EBA process (6.71 mg/mL). Therefore, it could be concluded that the SFBA technique is technically and economically advantageous over the conventional techniques when dealing with highly turbid feedstock.