Recovery of periplasmic human recombinant interferon alpha-2b (IFN-alpha 2b) from Escherichia coli rosetta-gami2 (DE3) using a single-step polyethylene glycol (PEG)-potassium phosphate aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) was investigated in this study. The influences of system parameters including PEG molecular weight, tie-line length, volume ratio, crude stock loading, system pH, and sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration (%, w/w) were studied. The results showed that the optimum condition to obtain the high purification factor of IFN-alpha 2b in a single step was achieved by ATPS composed of 4% (w/w) PEG 8000, 13% (w/w) potassium phosphate, 0.5% (w/w) NaCl, 10% (w/w) crude stock, and a system pH of 6.5. A purification factor of 26.3 and recovery yield of 40.7% were obtained from optimized ATPS.