Comparative Studies of Free and Facilitated Pertraction of Erythromycin from Streptomyces erythreus Broths

The paper presents the results obtained by analyzing the free and facilitated pertraction of Erythromycin from S. erythreus broths with cells concentration between 5 and 20 g L–1 DM. using dichloromethane as liquid membrane and D2EHPA as carrier. The pertraction has been carried out in pseudosteady-state regime, using the U-shaped pertraction cell that allows obtaining and easily maintaining the free liquid membrane. The increase of the biomass concentration in the feed phase led to the significant reduction of the initial and final mass flows of antibiotic, the addition of carrier in the liquid membrane attenuating this effect. Compared with the pertraction from simulated broths having the same apparent viscosity, but without solid phase, the mass flows are reduced up to 5 times for free pertraction, respectively up to 3 times for facilitated pertraction. Only the membrane permeability was favorably influenced by the biomass presence and accumulation, but this effect did not lead to the real increase of process efficiency