resumo
Hydrotropes are compounds able to enhance the solubility of hydrophobic substances in aqueous media and therefore are widely used in the formulation of drugs, cleaning and personal care products. In this work, it is shown that ionic liquids are a new class of powerful catanionic hydrotropes where both the cation and the anion synergistically contribute to increase the solubility of biomolecules in water. The effects of the ionic liquid chemical structures, their concentration and the temperature on the solubility of two model biomolecules, vanillin and gallic acid were evaluated and compared with the performance of conventional hydrotropes. The solubility of these two biomolecules was studied in the entire composition range, from pure water to pure ionic liquids, and an increase in the solubility of up to 40-fold was observed, confirming the potential of ionic liquids to act as hydrotropes. Using dynamic light scattering, NMR and molecular dynamics simulations, it was possible to infer that the enhanced solubility of the biomolecule in the IL aqueous solutions is related to the formation of ionic-liquid-biomolecules aggregates. Finally, it was demonstrated that hydrotropy induced by ionic liquids can be used to recover solutes from aqueous media by precipitation, simply by using water as an anti-solvent. The results reported here have a significant impact on the understanding of the role of ionic liquid aqueous solutions in the extraction of value-added compounds from biomass as well as in the design of novel processes for their recovery from aqueous media.
palavras-chave
ATOM FORCE-FIELD; PHASE-BEHAVIOR; AGGREGATION BEHAVIOR; CLATHRATE FORMATION; PHENOLIC-COMPOUNDS; GALLIC ACID; SOLUBILITY; WATER; NICOTINAMIDE; MIXTURES
categoria
Chemistry; Science & Technology - Other Topics
autores
Claudio, AFM; Neves, MC; Shimizu, K; Lopes, JNC; Freire, MG; Coutinho, JAP
nossos autores
Grupos
G4 - Materiais Renováveis e Economia Circular
G5 - Materiais Biomiméticos, Biológicos e Vivos
Projectos
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UID/CTM/50011/2013)
Igy Technology: A Purication Platform using Ionic-Liquid-Based Aqueous Biphasic Systems (IGYPURTECH)
agradecimentos
This work was carried out in the scope of the projects CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) and EXPL/QEQ-PRS/0224/2013 financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and, when applicable, co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. A. F. M. Claudio acknowledges FCT for the PhD grant SFRH/BD/74503/2010. M. G. Freire acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) for the starting grant ERC-2013-StG-337753.