Introduction

Liquid–liquid extraction (LLE), also known as solvent extraction and partitioning, is a

method to separate compounds or metal complexes, based on their relative solubilities in two
different immiscible liquids, usually water (polar) and an organic solvent (non-polar).
Downstream processing refers to recovery and purification of chemicals, biosynthetic products,
pharmaceuticals, food from natural sources as animal, plant tissue or fermentation process. It
is one of the ways used to recover products from unwanted metabolites for example by using
filtration, distillation and separations via extraction. These processes have been in use over a
long period of time in chemical engineering and bioprocess technology. In bioprocess
technology, complications can arise with the use of proteins, enzymes or other bio-molecules.
The stability of these molecules is one of the important aspects during the downstream process.

Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) is an important method to separate constituents (solutes)

of homogeneous liquid solutions. In this separation process, second liquid solvent is added
which is immiscible or partially miscible with the feed and the solutes of the mixture are
distributed between the two phases. A quantitative measure of the how a component will
distribute between the two phases is called the distribution or partition coefficient. Distribution
coefficient is the ratio of the concentrations of the solute in the two different solvents when the
system reaches equilibrium. LLE as a method of separation is used if the distillation process is
not feasible, requires more energy or is too complex. LLE is also used if the material is heat
sensitive and non-volatile.

The objective of this experiment is to observe the effect of change in flow rate of the
heavy phase towards the performance of the extraction process. In this experiment, iodine
(solute) is separated from the mixture of iodine and n-hexane by using water (solvent). The
composition of iodine in the extract is determined for every 5 minutes until the concentration
of iodine is constant. The experiment is carried out by using different flow rate of the heavy
phase. The concentration of iodine is determined by using titration technique by using starch
as the indicator.

Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) is an important separation technology for a wide range

of applications in the chemical process industries. LLE is commonly used in food industries.
For example, separation and purification of a particular fragrance or flavour as well as caffeine
extraction are done by this process. Bio-oil produced from biomass pyrolysis is usually a
complex mixture of different organic compounds with high water content. Therefore, LLE can
separate bio-oil from the mixture efficiently. An important element used in the fermentation of
biofuels and chemicals is algae. LLE process is applied to recover the algae and reduce the cost
as well as energy equipment. Furthermore, LLE process is also applied in the yeast
fermentation and wastewater to extract acetic acid, which is inhibitor in yeast fermentation, and
micro pollutant such as phenols and nitrate aromatics in both yeast fermentation and wastewater
respectively.