ABSTRACT
Microbial biosurfactants (BSs) are gaining significant importance in the global surfactant market which was $4.20 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach $5.52 billion by 2022. As their demand increases, there is a need for technologies that support high yield fermentation production, effective downstream processing and development of new applications. Among the BSs fermentation processes, downstream processing is a crucial step that accounts for 60% of the production cost and each BS needs unique downstream processing protocol to achieve the desired purity to meet specific application criteria. Large scale downstream processing of glycolipid BSs, such as SLs, RLs and MELs exists commercially and is economically viable, but some end uses of BSs are limited by their purity, which varies significantly and many applications requires further purification which increases the final product price. For example, medical and cosmetic application of BSs may require highly 17purified BSs while environmental and agricultural application may require low purity or crude BSs. This chapter reviews different downstream processing protocols of BSs and their advantages and disadvantages and concludes with future prospects to improve or create new BS downstream process methods.
