Siberian Federal University

Microemulsions are transparent, thermodynamically stable, low viscosity systems that are formed by two immiscible liquids. They can solubilize a large number of substances. For biological applications they must consist of non-toxic, biocompatible components. In this regard, we have obtained and studied a reverse AOT/isopropyl myristate/ KCl aqueous solution microemulsion. The required concentrations of components were selected. One of the promising areas for application of such systems is the extraction of protein from raw materials. Protein extraction using reverse microemulsions typically involves two steps: forward extraction and backward extraction. Forward extraction is the step-in which proteins are dissolved in the aqueous pool of microemulsions, while backward extraction is recovering the solubilized proteins from them to aqueous solution. Wheat germ proteins are an effective plant protein rich in amino acids, especially essential ones such as lysine, methionine and threonine, which are deficient in many cereals, and are also a source of vitamin E. In this work, the extraction of defatted wheat germ protein by reverse microemulsion was studied. The effects of KCl concentration, extraction time and temperature on the forward extraction efficiency were tested. The experimental results lead to the conclusion that the highest forward extraction efficiency was reached at the KCl concentration 0.1 mol/L, time 30 min and temperature 400C. Under these conditions, the forward extraction efficiency achieved 70 %. Thus, the obtained microemulsions can be effectively used for the extraction of proteins from wheat germ, used for medical and cosmetic purposes