Study On Foam Fractionation Of Proteins

As a new technology, foam separation technology has widely studied and used inrecent years because of its mild operation conditions, low cost and good separationefficiency.In this paper, three proteins（BSA, HSA and soybean protein）were chosen.Through single factor experiment of these proteins, the effects of liquid height, initialconcentration, pH, air flow rate and ionic strength were discussed. The factors withsignificant effect have been chosen, and the best separation conditions have beenfound by the optimization experiments. For BSA: the initial concentration of BSAwas0.08g/L, the liquid height was35.5cm, air flow rate was0.3m3/h, pH value ofsolution was5, the concentration of NaCl was0.01mol/L, the recovery rate of BSAwas99.2%. For HSA: the initial concentration of HSA was0.14g/L, the liquid heightwas31.5cm, air flow rate was0.3m3/h, pH value of solution was4.5, theconcentration of NaCl was0.005mol/L, the recovery rate of HSA was89.3%. Forsoybean protein: the initial concentration of soybean protein was0.7g/L, the liquidheight was22.5cm, air flow rate was0.25m3/h, pH value of solution was5, therecovery rate of soybean protein was58.2%.The mathematical model of foam separation has been set up. Several parameterswere assumed reasonably. Then several material balance have been established andsolved by means of matlab software. The relationships between the bubble radius,thickness of liquid film, the cross sectional area of Plateau, the concentration ofprotein and foam layer height were obtained. The predicted enrichment ratios havebeen obtained in different initial concentration and air flow rate. It was found that theresults were satisfied and the assumptions and simplifications are reasonable. Ofcourse, because of these simplifications, some errors have been achieved to thepredicted results.