Kinetic studies of clavulanic acid recovery by ion exchange chromatography

Clavulanic acid (CA) is a beta-lactamase inhibitor produced by strains of Streptomyces clavuligerus. Nowadays, the combination of CA with amoxycillin is the most successful example of the use of a beta-lactam antibiotic sensitive to beta-lactamases together with an inhibitor of these enzymes. Clavulanic acid is purified from fermentation broth by a series of steps consisting mainly of two-phase separation processes such as liquid–liquid extraction, adsorption or ion-exchange chromatography, among others. Amberlite IRA 400, a strong anion-exchange resin, has a very high adsorption capacity for CA (Mayer et al. 1997). This resin can be pre-treated with NaCl (chloride cycle), to remove selectively only those anions, which are able to displace chloride from the resin or with NaOH (hydroxyl cycle), to remove all species of anions. In order to decide the best operating conditions for CA recovery by ion-exchange resins and then to construct a model of this separation process, batch experiments were conducted using Amberlite IRA 400 in the chloride cycle. These runs were carried out in a 200 ml stirred tank, at two different initial solution pH, 6.2 and 4.0; the temperature was maintained at 10 °C and 20 °C during adsorption and 30 °C during the desorption step. It was possible, on the basis of these batch results, to model the separation process, including the adsorption kinetics, equilibrium data and mass transfer limitations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.