Recovery of bromelain from pineapple stem residues using aqueous micellar two-phase systems with ionic liquids as co-surfactants

Pineapple processing industries produce a large amount of residues; for example, the pineapple stem, which is rich in bromelain. Bromelain is a group of cysteine proteinases that have major importance in the pharmaceutical field due to, among others, their anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, and fibrinolytic activities. Since Brazil is one of the largest producers of pineapples in the world, the development of an ecofriendly and cost-effective process to extract and purify bromelain from food/fruit residues would be significant. In this study, aqueous micellar two-phase systems composed of ionic liquids as co-surfactants were evaluated in the extraction of bromelain from the pineapple stem crude extract. The main results showed that bromelain partitions preferentially toward the micelle-poor phase, with enzyme recoveries above 90% for the studied systems. Moreover, a stabilizing effect of the ionic liquids toward the enzyme was observed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.