BACKGROUND: During the last two decades, separations based on liquid membrane technology have been demonstrated to be a potentially attractive process for a large number of industrial separations. The advantages of this technology over the current separation processes allowed its commercialization in the area of chemical/environmental applications (for the removal of toxic metals). Efforts are being devoted to biotechnological processes where membrane extraction has an added advantage of improving the productivity by removing inhibitory product during its production cycle. In this article the applicability of a membrane extraction technique based on hollow-fibre membrane modules is investigated to extract a new antibiotic, Shengjimycin (SJM). SJM is produced in a multicomponent fermentation broth, from which the main components required to be separated selectively. RESULTS: From equilibrium experiments, sunflower oil, a cheap and less toxic solvent, was found to be good for the extraction of SJM at its natural pH of 7.2-7.8. Addition of a small amount (1.5%) of Amberlite LA-2 (a carrier) in the solvent could intensify the process to achieve a high distribution coefficient. The process using this organic phase (Amberlite LA-2 in sunflower oil) gave good extraction (ca 70%) within 3-4 h in a pilot-scale hollow-fibre membrane module. This new system is preferred over the toxic solvents being used or tried because of its cost, less toxicity, low environmental impact and operator-friendliness. CONCLUSIONS: Because of the above-mentioned favourable characteristics this membrane extraction method has the potential to be sustainable and effective as it has shown selective separation of the desired component from a multicomponent mixture. (C) 2011 Society of Chemical Industry