Liquid-liquid reversed micellar extraction for isolating enzymes: Studies on the purification of α-amylase

The purification of alpha-amylase from a elude enzyme preparation was carried out by liquid-liquid reversed micellar extraction. After a full forward and background extraction cycle, the alpha-amylase was purified about 1.5-fold with 85% recovery. Most of the contaminating neutral protease in the crude enzyme preparation could be removed at the end of an extraction cycle. The separation factor of alpha-amylase to neutral protease reached about 10.