The study investigates the recovery of active components (crystal proteins, spores and other factors of virulence) of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) based biopesticides from centrifuged supernatant, by ultrafiltration. The centrifuged fermented broths comprised, starch industry wastewater, nonhydrolyzed and hydrolyzed wastewater sludge and semi-synthetic soya medium (as control). The ultrafiltration membrane of 5 kDa gave highest recovery of the active components and increased the entomotoxicity in the retentates by 7.9%, 10.5%, 9.0%, 5.7%, for semi-synthetic soya medium, starch industry wastewater, non-hydrolyzed and hydrolyzed wastewater sludge, respectively. However, the retention of suspended solids on the membrane (measured via mass balance) varied with the type of fermented broths and was very high for hydrolyzed sludge (soya-15%; starch industry wastewater-12%; non-hydrolyzed sludge-7% and hydrolyzed sludge-68%). This reflected the deposit on the membrane. In the given context, scale-up of the ultrafiltration process will give better efficacy for non-hydrolyzed sludge and starch industry wastewater in comparison to soya and hydrolyzed sludge medium. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.