3.1. Ionic liquid based microemulsion extraction of Monascus pigments
For conventional submerged culture in an aqueous solution at
low pH, orange Monascus pigments was majorly accumulated intracellularly.
Extractive fermentation in nonionic surfactant micelle
aqueous solution under the same condition had exported the intracellular
pigments into its extracellular broth. More interestingly,
the fraction of yellow Monascus pigments increased markedly and
the yellow Monascus pigments became as the major pigment components
(Fig. S1). The extracellular broth was subjected to ionic liquid
([Bmim]PF6) based Winsor I microemulsion extraction as
depicted in Fig. 2A. High recovery yield based on absorbance at