Recovery of value-added products from wastewater using Aqueous Two-Phase Systems – A review

Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) is long seen as a technique that promotes higher purity and yield in a single step. It is witnessing increased acceptance as a preferred choice for combined goals of concentration, separation and purification of a target product, be it industrially valuable or environmentally contaminating. Purification of biomolecules like enzymes, proteins, nucleic acids, viruses, etc. has been the forte of ATPS. Currently, the technique is used for concentrating the toxic fractions from diverse industrial let offs, from food, dairy, beverage, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, dyeing, tannery and metal-processing industries. Apart from being simple, efficient, rapid, flexible, economical, and biocompatible, the selectivity, purity and yield are on par and sometimes higher than the traditional downstream steps. From an industrial angle too, problems related to scale-up of ATPS are being actively addressed. Many novel approaches are being added by way of varying ATPS components to increase the yield and purity. Another case in point is the inclusion of optimization techniques for zeroing in on the precise setting of the operating parameters. With increasing impetus to the approach, we attempt to draw attention from academia and industries, alike, that are developing novel tweaks to the currently existing practices in ATPS. This review aims to assess and evaluate the different types of ATPS that have been used for the recovery of valuables and contaminants from industrial waste discharges.