POLYESTER PARTICLES

摘要

This invention relates to a process for producing polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) that overcomes a problem encountered when seeking to separate PHA particles without centrifugation. The process comprises producing a biomass containing PHA particles and non-PHA cell material (NPCM), solubilising the NPCM, oxidizing the resulting product mixture to further solubilise NPCM, adding a water soluble surfactant to produce a suspension, and heating the suspension below the melting point of the PHA to agglomerate the PHA particles to a suitable weight average diameter. In one emdobiment, the surfactant is a monomeric water soluble surfactant. In another embodiment, the weight average particle diameter is 200 mu m to 500 mu m.