International Journal of Engineering and Technology

As an emerging trend in bioseparation, aqueous two phase extractions based on phosponium ionic liquid have been utilized in this work to extract papain from Carica papaya fruit latex and the same was compared with conventional aqueous two phase extraction system. Factors affecting the partition coefficient of papain such as ionic liquid concentration, pH of the extraction system and temperature have been investigated. The optimization studies show that ionic liquid concentrations and pH are majorly influencing the phase formations and papain partitioning. It reveals the importance of electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions in the papain partitioning. Purification studies performed on Gel Filtration Chromatography shows that 96% of the papain enzyme could be extracted with the phosponium based ionic liquid in a single stage extraction. The final fraction containing papain enzyme was confirmed by SDS Page analysis.