Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a biodegradable polymer synthesized intracellular by many microorganisms. After extraction from the cells, they possess the common features of non-toxic, biocompatible, biodegradable and recyclable. These features render them highly competitive with polypropylene or other petroleum-derived plastics, especially in medicine. The recovery of PHA from bacterial cells is the key step of PHA production process. Many methods have been used for PHA recovery
these include solvent extraction, enzymatic hydrolysis, and chemical digestion. In this study, the chemical digestion method was used for recovery of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) from Yangia sp. ND199. Among various chemical tested (NaOH, HCl, KOH, NaOCl and SDS), NaOCl was found as an efficient chemical for PHB recovery PHB from Yangia sp. ND199. The optimal recovery condition was a ratio of 1:1 (v/v, solution containing 100 g/l bacterial cells and solution containing 6 percent NaOCl), at 30oC for 1h. Under such conditions, a purity of 99 percent and a recovery yield of 94 percent were obtained. This purification method is simple and can be developed and used for pilot scale.