Production of rhamnolipid compositions
View Patent ↗Provided are organic solvent free methods for obtaining compositions comprising one or more rhamnolipids as well as compositions obtainable from said methods.
1. An organic solvent-free process for obtaining a composition comprising one or more rhamnolipids (RLs), wherein said composition comprising rhamnolipids is a concentrated clarified broth comprising at least about 30% rhamnolipids by weight comprising:
(a) providing an aqueous medium comprising at least one rhamnolipid;
(b) removing solid waste from said medium provided in step (a);
(c) treating said medium obtained in step (b) with acid to obtain an acidic medium, wherein said acidic medium obtained comprises a solid, aqueous liquid and oily phase;
(d) removing at least the aqueous liquid phase obtained in step (c);
(e) neutralizing the solid and optionally oily phases obtained in step (c) to produce a neutralized solution;
(f) removing insoluble waste material from said neutralized solution of step (e) to obtain said composition.
2. The process according to claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises a sterilization step before and/or after said medium is treated with acid in step (c) and optionally an additional separation step to remove insoluble waste from said solution before and/or after said sterilization step.
3. The process according to claim 1 , which further comprises after sterilization, decolorizing and/or deodorized said sterilized concentrated clarified broth.
4. The process according to claim 1 , which further comprises removing water from said solution obtained in step (f).
5. The process according to claim 1 , wherein said solid and oily phases are neutralized separately to obtain separate solutions.
6. The process according to claim 1 , wherein said solid and oily phases are combined and said combined solid and oily phases are neutralized to obtain a neutralized solution.
7. The process according to claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises before and/or after said sterilization step aging said medium provided.
8. A composition comprising a neutralized solution obtainable according to the method of claim 1 .
9. A composition comprising a decolorized and/or deodorized concentrated clarified broth obtainable according to the method of claim 3 .
10. A composition comprising the aged medium obtainable according to the method of claim 7 .