Separation of lipids and proteins from clarified microalgae lysate: The effect of lipid-protein interaction on the cross-flow and shear-enhanced microfiltration performances

For microalgae biorefinery, membrane process is a suitable technology for biomolecules (i.e., proteins, lipids or carbohydrates) fractionation due to the simplicity in operation, flexibility implementation and potential processing large volumes. Here objective was microfiltrate aqueous extracts, after cell disruption clarification, concentrate retentate recover hydrophilic proteins permeate. However, optimization of requires amount raw material composition real extracts so complex that it limits in-depth understanding / molecules interactions on modification filtration performances. Thus, simplified model mixtures clarified lysates were formulated, aiming at quite high complexity with constant but nice representativity respect mixture. Through microfiltration three containing lipids, both kinds molecules, demonstrated strong interaction between solution modified fouling had clear impact permeation selectivity, similarly mixtures. The dynamic tested enhance performances compared cross-flow filtration. higher shear rate favored an increase flux therefore productivity, did not modify selectivity. It existing generated during drives separation efficiency should be mitigated future works allow whole biomass biorefining.