LAUSR

Abstract The present work investigated the SS performance with focus on the addition of second collecting phase to intensify the separation of vanillin and eugenol. First, experiments were performed with only n-octanol as the only collecting phase and the effects of solutes concentration and pH of the bottom phase were evaluated on the separation efficiency (E%). Then, the SS process was performed in a three-liquid-phase system formed by n-octanol/PEG 400/(NH4)2SO4 and the results were evaluated based on E%, distribution coefficient (D) and vanillin selectivity (RVAN/EUG) values. When compared to single component experiments, the presence of another solute had little effect on the E% values of vanillin and eugenol, regardless of the range of the initial concentration. Moreover, in SS with n-octanol/acetate buffer it was possible to reach the highest values of E% for vanillin (53.83%) and eugenol (85.37%) in experiments with pH equal to 4.5. On the other hand, the three-liquid-phase system achieved selectivity at least twice as high as two-liquid-phase systems and D values higher than 25 for vanillin in the PEG 400-rich phase. Thus, SS using three-liquid-phase system appears as an alternative to solve multicomponent separation problems involving bioactive compounds.