Cost-Effective and Regenerating Porous Polysulfone-Based Beads Extraction for in Situ Microbial 2-Phenylethanol Recovery

2-Phenylethanol (2-PE) is a multipurpose aromatic molecule, approved as GRAS, largely used across various industries, including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Growing demand and concerns about petroleum-based synthesis drive the need for sustainable alternatives. Microbial biotechnologies offer ecofriendly solutions with high specificity and mild conditions. In this work, porous polysulfone beads (PPBs) are presented as novel 2-PE recovery adsorbents. PPBs show selective absorption of 2-PE without affecting microbial growth, and they are inexpensive, reusable, and sterilizable. According to comparative testing, PPBs achieve high absorption properties reaching 0.004 mg2-PE mgPPB–1 in 24 h when using 200 mg of PPBs with 10 mL of an aqueous 150 mg L–1 2-PE solution. Moreover, the majority is absorbed in the first 5 h, while after 24 h, the absorption is minimal. 2-PE affinity for PPBs in water solution is demonstrated by its partition coefficient K of 8.24, which explains its effective absorption and poor release in water. Ethanol was utilized to desorb 2-PE from PPBs more effectively, and in just 24 h, 98.8% of 2-PE was liberated. Additionally, the material retains selectivity in a complex growth medium and performs consistently throughout several usage cycles. Even at laboratory scale, the life cycle assessment (LCA) of this process shows that it overcomes the industrial extraction methods in terms of environmental impact. These results establish PPBs as viable options for scalable and sustainable 2-PE bioproduction.