Purification of Phycocyanin from Chaohu Algae by Various Salting out Methods

Abstract

This research was carried out to extract and purify phycocyan in from blue algae from Chaohu Lake by utilizing salting out methods. Thus a two-step salting out was performed using Ammonium sulphate, Triammonium citrate, Sodium citrate and Sodium sulfate. The phycocyanin and the impurity solution collected at each phase were subjected to analysis by using UV-Vis spectrophotometer to identify the optimal dose of ammonium sulfate, triammonium citrate, sodium citrate and sodium sulfate. The optimal molar concentration for Ammonium sulphate, Triammonium citrate, Sodium citrate and Sodium sulfate in the first and second salting out process were 1.0 mol/L and 1.7mol/L for Ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4, 0.7, mol/L and 1.3 mol/L for Triammonium citrate C6H17N3O7, 0.5mol/L and 0.9 mol/L for Sodium citrate C6H5Na3O7, 1.0mol/L and 1.3 mol/L for Sodium sulfate Na2S04. After the two-step salting out processes, it was observed that higher molar concentrations can remove impurities in large quantities, and both purity and yield was greatly increased. The results indicate a purity of phycocyanin above 2.0 with a phycocyanin recovery relatively high. This was carried out to affirm and estimate if result from the salt use will vary from a previous experiment carried out on the same river by the authors with three (3) different kinds of salt K3C6H5O7H2O, C6H5O7(NH4)3 and (NH4)2SO4 as compared to the four (4) salt compound used in this experiment.