Study On Foam Fractionation Of Proteins

Foam fractionation is known to have potential for separation ofbiological molecules with a range of surface activities because of itslow cost and mild operation conditions. In this dissertation, fractionation of BSA and HAS was studied. Theeffects of gas velocity, pH, temperature, pool and foam height, initialfeed concentration and feed rate on separation results were studied. Theexperimental results show that low velocity, high pool and foam levels,low initial concentration, and pH around isoelectric point of proteinsare the beneficial conditions to get higher enrichment. The highest valuesof enrichment and recovery obtained were 28.6 and 93.1%,respectively. The Mathematic model was developed with many assumptions such asadsorption equilibrium, same size bubbles, dodecahedron substitutingreal bubble. Under reasonable initial and boundary conditions, thedifferential equations were solved without accounting for coalescence ofbubbles by means of Matlab and the enrichment and recovery was predictedand the results were discussed. The simplification of the model and theneglect of bubbles coalescence resulted in lower enrichment and recovery.