Economic evaluation of the primary recovery of tetracycline with traditional and novel aqueous two-phase systems

abstract

Antibiotics are a key pharmaceutical to inhibit growth or kill microorganisms. They represent a profitable market and, in particular, tetracycline has been listed as an essential medicine by the WHO. Therefore it is important to improve their production processes. Recently novel and traditional aqueous two-phase systems for the extraction have been developed with positive results. The present work performs an economic analysis of the production and recovery of tetracycline through the use of several ATPS through bioprocess modeling using specialized software (BioSolve, Biopharm Services Ltd, UK) to determine production costs per gram (CoG/g). First, a virtual model was constructed using published data on the recovery of tetracycline and extended to incorporate uncertainties. To determine how the model behaved, a sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo simulations were performed. Results showed that ATPS formed by cholinium chloride/K3PO4 was the best option to recover tetracycline, as it had the lowest CoG/g (US$ 672.83/g), offered the highest recovery yield (92.42%), second best sample input capacity (45% of the ATPS composition) and one of the lowest materials contribution to cost. The ionic liquid-based method of ATPS is a promising alternative for recovering tetracycline from fermentation broth.

keywords

FISCHERI MARINE-BACTERIA; DECISION-SUPPORT TOOL; IONIC LIQUIDS; BIPHASIC SYSTEMS; POLYETHYLENE-GLYCOL; PARTITION BEHAVIOR; PERFUSION CULTURE; UNCERTAINTY; EXTRACTION; STRATEGIES

subject category

Engineering

authors

Torres-Acosta, MA; Pereira, JFB; Freire, MG; Aguilar-Yanez, JM; Coutinho, JAP; Titchener-Hooker, NJ; Rito-Palomares, M

our authors

acknowledgements

The authors report no conflicts of interest. Mario A. Torres-Acosta acknowledges the support from CONACYT for the fellowship No. 485025 which enabled him to perform experiments during a research stay in the Department of Biochemical Engineering, University College London. Also, the technical support of Andrew Sinclair from Biopharm Services is gratefully acknowledged. This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-010-145-FEDER-007679 (FCT Ref. UID/CTM/50011/2013), financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. The research leading to reported results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 337753. Jorge F. B. Pereira acknowledges financial support from FAPESP (Sao Paulo Research Foundation Brazil) through the project 2014/16424-7.

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