The accumulated PHA was extracted according to previously reported literature (Gumel et al., 2012a (link)). PHA accumulated biomass was harvested by centrifugation at 9000 × g (Sorvall RC-5C Plus, Thermo Scientific Germany) for 10 min. The supernatant was discarded while 10% (v/v) n-hexane in distilled water was used to wash the pellets three times to remove residual fatty acids. Later, the biomass was dried in vacuo in the presence of phosphorus pentaoxide using vacuum drying oven VC-6020 (Constance, Germany) at 45 °C for 24 h. About 10% (w/v) dried biomass was suspended in chloroform and refluxed at 80 °C for 4 h, after which Buchner flask equipped with 0.2 μm PTFE filter paper was used to filter the reflux mixture under vacuum. The filtrate was concentrated in rotary evaporator (Yamato RE300; Yamato, Japan) at 4 °C under reduced pressure until about 5% of the original volume. The polymer was then precipitated in cold methanol while being gently stirred. The PHA solution was allowed to settle under gravity for 24 h after which the supernatant was decanted leaving behind a layer of PHA film. This film was air-dried before the purification steps were repeated by chloroform dissolution and methanol extraction. The PHA film was dried in vacuo prior to characterization and quantification.