A solvent that, when combined with water and an appropriate surfactant (e.g., fluoroethers), forms a solvent system that can effectively dissolve large biological molecules without causing those molecules to lose biological activity. Carbon dioxide is a gas at normal (atmospheric) pressure and ambient temperature, but in its supercritical state\u2014temperature above 31.3\u00b0C (88\u00b0F) and pressure greater than 72.9 atmospheres\u2014carbon dioxide becomes a dense (sort of) liquid. Some coffee processors have used supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent to remove caffeine from coffee. In 1995, Keith Johnston added the surfactant ammonium carboxylate perfluoropolyether to a supercritical carbon dioxide system containing water; and proved that the large biological molecule bovine serum albumin dissolved inside the micelles that form via water droplet surrounded by fluoroether molecules. Subsequent to that, Eric Beckman proved that the protease subtilisin Carlsberg can be extracted from crude (impure) cell broth because that protease preferentially dissolves in a supercritical carbon dioxide\/water system containing fluoroether amphiphiles as surfactants.<\/p>\n
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A solvent that, when combined with water and an appropriate surfactant (e.g., fluoroethers), forms a solvent system that can effectively dissolve large biological molecules without causing those molecules to lose biological activity. Carbon dioxide is a gas at normal (atmospheric) pressure and ambient temperature, but in its supercritical state\u2014temperature above 31.3\u00b0C (88\u00b0F) and pressure greater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n