LAUSR

Abstract This work bets in Choline (Ch) Amino Acid (AA)-based Ionic Liquids (ILs) to design a biocompatible separation process. This family represents a greener alternative regarding more toxic and recalcitrant analogues, like conventional imidazolium ILs. In this vein, the library of Ch-based ILs has been rationally incremented by utilizing L-Phenylalanyl-L-Phenylalanine (Phe-Phe) as an anionic counterpart. Aqueous Biphasic Systems (ABS) have been recently proposed for the recovery of high value metabolites in microalgae biorefineries. In this study, an Ch-based IL, ChPhe-Phe, was synthesized, and its industrial potential was evaluated for obtaining natural antioxidants from the model microalga Tetraselmis suecica. Therefore, ABS-forming, biomolecule extraction and lytic capacities were investigated separately for the appropriate selection of ILs. The synthesized ChPhe-Phe demonstrated a superior performance than the simpler ChAA when segregated with K3PO4 aqueous solutions in terms of tie line length (TLL) and slope (S), improving the results obtained with 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium methylsulfate (C2C1ImC1SO4). Finally, ChPhe-Phe was employed for setting-up a simultaneous lytic and biomolecule recovery stage from T. suecica, which returned promising results for the development of this biocompatible technology.