KINETICS AND ADSORPTION ISOTHERM OF C-PHYCOCYANIN FROM Spirulina platensis ON ION-EXCHANGE RESINS

C-phycocyanin is a natural blue dye extracted from Spirulina platensis, which has many applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries. In this paper the effect of pH and temperature on the adsorption of C-phycocyanin onto two different ion exchange resins (Streamline DEAE and Streamline Q XL) for expanded bed adsorption chromatography was investigated. Moreover, the kinetics and adsorption isotherm were evaluated. The equilibrium for the Q XL matrix was reached after 60 min, while for DEAE it was only reached after 140 min. C-phycocyanin showed the highest partition coefficient at pH 7.5 for both resins at 25 °C. The C-phycocyanin adsorption isotherm was very well represented by the Langmuir, Freundlich and Langmuir-Freundlich models, where the estimated values for Qm and Kd obtained by the Langmuir isotherm were, respectively, 33.92 mg.mL and 0.123 mg.mL for DEAE, and 28.12 mg.mL and 0.082 mg.mL for the Q XL matrix. A negative cooperativity was observed for C-phycocyanin binding when the Q XL matrix was used, while the cooperativity was purely independent using the DEAE matrix.