In this review,technological advances on isolation and purification of phycocyanin and their application were summarized from detailed introduction to the purified methods such as mutli-step salting out,aqueous twophase extraction,salting out combined with aqueous two-phase extraction,reversed micellar extraction,chitosan affinity precipitation-activated carbon adsorption-DEAE Sephadex A-25 column chromatography,combined ion exchange chromatography and hydrophobic interaction chromatography.In addition,factors that influence the effect of these methods were discussed.The present problems related to the isolation and purification were analyzed and future application of phycocyanin was proposed.