AQUEOUS TWO-PHASE SYSTEMS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN BIOSEPARATION AND PURIFICATION

Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) is a liquid–liquid separation technique that has shown great potential for the extraction, recovery and purification of a great variety of biological compounds. The main advantages of this technique over other separation methods for proteins and other biocompounds are included: scaling-up feasibility, process integration capability, biocompatibility and, most importantly, continuous operation. This review has briefly summarized various aqueous two-phase systems design based on polymer/polymer, polymer/salt, surfactant and ionic liquid