Shear-induced phase inversion of complex emulsions for recovery of organic components from biomass

Abstract

A method of recovering organic components from an aqueous biomass in the method includes: (i) providing an aqueous biomass containing organic components; (ii) treatment of the aqueous biomass to release intracellular organic components from within cells of the biomass to form a biomass suspension; addition of a water-immiscible component to the biomass suspension to form a mixture comprising biomass and water-immiscible component; (iv) subjecting the mixture comprising biomass and water-immiscible component to high shear to form a water-in-water-immiscible-component emulsion; and (v) separating the water-immiscible component phase from the water/aqueous phase.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.