Nonconventional techniques for separation of biosynthetic amino acids

Amino acids can be obtained by biosynthesis, by protein hydrolysis or by extraction from natural sources. The most efficient methods are the first two, but the separation of amino acids from fermentation broths or protein hydrolysates is rather difficult. Amino acids dissociate in aqueous solutions, forming characteristic ionic species depending on the solution pH-value. These properties make amino acids to be hydrophilic at any pH-value. This paper presents a review of the separation studies of some amino acids by nonconventional methods, namely individual or selective reactive extraction. Separation of some amino acids from their mixture obtained either by fermentation or protein hydrolysis by reactive extraction with different extractants indicated the possibility of the amino acids selective separation as a function of the pH-value of aqueous solution correlated with the acidic or basic character of each amino acid.