Sistemas aquosos bifásicos, princípios teóricos e aplicações: revisão bibliográfica

Abstract

This paper presents a bibliographic review on aqueous two-phase systems (ATP’s), gathers literature data on the different applications and uses of liquid-liquid extraction operation. The reported effects for physicochemical parameters such as temperature, pH, influence of salt type and molar mass on ATP's equilibrium data were described. Increasing the temperature generally increases the biphasic region, which necessitates smaller amounts of phase-forming constituents to form ATP's. It has been found in several works that the increase of the mooring lines inclination with the increase of the anion charge. It was observed that the higher the molar mass of polymers, the lower the concentration required for phase separation. On pH, most studies concluded that there was no effect of this variable on the binodal curve, nor influence of pH on the mooring line compositions. However, it is noteworthy that when it comes to proteins, pH can affect the partition of this biomolecule. Regarding the use of ionic liquids, it was observed that they are alternatives for purification of value added biomolecules. As an innovation, we highlight the use of triblock copolymers in systems that require nonwater soluble extractants and for extraction of hydrophobic solutes and showed favorable results for extraction. The use of ionic liquids as constituents of ATP and also as an adjuvant in biomolecule partition assays has been presented. The application of SAB in purification of organic acids was presented. Therefore, this work contributed to the compilation of liquid-liquid equilibrium results presented in the literature and demonstrated the potential of liquid-liquid extraction by ATP’s for the extraction of the most diverse compounds.