GB763608A - Recovery of vitamin-active materials - Google Patents

Abstract

Vitamin B12-active materials, adsorbed on a cation-exchange resin characterized as deriving its cation-exchange capacity essentially from carboxylic groups, and being substantially completely in its hydrogen form, are eluted therefrom by means of an aqueous solution of an inorganic base which is substantially free of any organic base or any polar organic solvent, which solution preferably has a pH above about 10 and contains sufficient inorganic base to convert the resin substantially completely to the salt form. The adsorbate is preferably prepared by contacting an aqueous solution containing Vitamin B12-active material (especially a fermentation broth such as that derived from the fermentation of a nutrient medium with a Vitamin B12-producing strain of Streptomyces griseus, Bacillus megatherium or Alkaligenes faecalis), and having a pH in the range of approximately 2-3, with the resin substantially completely in its hydrogen form. Suitable resins are condensation products of resorcylic acid and formaldehyde, and especially copolymers of divinylbenzene and acrylic or methacrylic acid, preferably having a divinylbenzene content of 2.5-5 per cent by weight. Examples describe the use, in the preferred embodiments of the invention, of 3 per cent aqueous solutions of: (1)-(3) sodium hydroxide, (4) potassium hydroxide, and (5) ammonium hydroxide, which solutions may contain a small amount of sodium cyanide to convert Vitamin B12 analogues to Vitamin B12. Reference is also made to aqueous trisodium phosphate as an eluant, and to fermentation broths from Alternaria alevaeca, Pseudomonas sp., Mycobacterium smegmatis or S. fradiae, aqueous concentrates obtained in the working up of solutions of Vitamin B12-active substances, aqueous extracts and digestion products of microorganism cells, and sewage sludges as sources of Vitamin B12-active substances.