Systems and Methods for Utilizing and Recovering Chitosan to Process Biological Material

摘要

Systems and methods for processing biological material utilizing chitosan are provided herein. Methods may include the steps of reducing the pH of an amount of culture to about 5 to 7, incorporating an amount of a chitosan solution into the culture to form a mixture, wherein chitosan in the chitosan solution binds to the biological material; increasing the pH of the culture to about 7 to 10, to flocculate biological material in the culture, concentrating the flocculates, reducing the pH of the concentrated flocculates to about 3 to 5, and separating the recovered chitosan solution from the concentrated biological material.

主权项

1. A method for utilizing and recovering chitosan to process biological material, comprising:
reducing the pH of an amount of culture to about 5 to 7, inclusive, the amount of culture including an amount of biological material suspended within a fluid; incorporating an amount of a chitosan solution into the culture to form a mixture, wherein chitosan in the chitosan solution binds to the suspended biological material; increasing the pH of the mixture to about 7 to 10, inclusive, to cause the biological material bound to the chitosan to form flocculates that are dispersed in the fluid; concentrating the flocculates by separating the flocculates from the fluid; reducing the pH of the concentrated flocculates to about 3 to 5, inclusive, to disassociate the chitosan from the concentrated biological material causing the chitosan to combine with the fluid to create a recovered chitosan solution; and separating the recovered chitosan solution from the concentrated biological material.