Single- and Dual-Stream Foam Fractionation of Protein – Exploring a Simple and Effective System to Improve Fundamental Understanding

Lihua Yan; Jie Xiao; Tim V Kirk; Xiao Dong Chen

doi:10.1515/ijfe-2018-0397

Abstract

In this paper, a single-/dual-stream foam separation device was constructed to simplify the conventional foam fractionation process (CFFP), by minimizing interactions between bubbles. This was expected to help reveal mechanisms in a ‘neat’ way. Results have shown negligible productivity of single-stream foam fractionation (SSFF) for the protein enrichment ratio (E) under conditions tested, whereas dual-stream foam fractionation (DSFF) was established as a reasonable basic unit of CFFP. The influence of DSFF operating conditions, such as the inlet protein concentration and gas velocity, were examined. Calculations of protein concentration and liquid volume were performed via foam thickness measurement, which is very difficult with CFFP. It was evident that the middle drainage channel played a key role in enrichment phenomena. The current DSFF system provides a control case for evaluating principles of foam fractionation. Furthermore, a simple mass-balance model has been proposed to represent the column-wide behavior of DSFF.

Keywords: foam fractionation; process scale-down; protein separation

Nomenclature

H: The height of foam column
C₀: Protein concentration of feed solution
C_f: Protein concentration of foamate
E: Protein enrichment ratio
C_s: AES concentration
V: Liquid content of the foam
V_1.2: Liquid content of the foam at gas velocity of 1.2 ml/min
V_1.0: Liquid content of the foam at gas velocity of 1.0 ml/min
V_0.8: Liquid content of the foam at gas velocity of 0.8 ml/min
C₁^’: Foamate protein concentration at the height of h₁
C₀^’: Protein concentration of foam at the column bottom (H = 0 mm)
V₁^’: Liquid content at the height of h₁
V_0ʹ: Liquid content at the column bottom (H = 0 mm)
ρ0,ρ1: The densities of liquid in the foam at H = 0 mm and H = h₁
h₁: The height of the foam
V_P: liquid content of the plateau border
V_F: Liquid content of the film
n_p: The fraction of a certain plateau channel in the bubble
A_P: The cross-sectional area of plateau border
L: The length of plateau border
n_F: The fraction of a certain liquid film in the bubble
A_F: the cross-sectional area of liquid film
x_F: The thickness of liquid film
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h: Mass fraction of protein flowed down to the next layer
m: The common ratio of the geometric sequence
R: The diameter of the column
C_a: The protein concentration of the upper layer foam
C_b: The protein concentration of the lower layer foam
C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8: Protein concentration without drainage of protein at the height of 0, 0.125, 0.250, 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, 0.875 and 1.0 m.
Subscripts
f: Foamate
o: The original solution
s: AES
P: Plateau border
F: Liquid film
F-m: Liquid film of middle channel
F-s: Liquid film of side channel

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (International S&T Cooperation Program, ISTCP, 2016YFE0101200), and “Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions”. Jie Xiao also acknowledges the “Jiangsu Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Shuang Chuang) Program” and “Jiangsu Specially-Appointed Professors Program”. Additionally, the authors want to thank Chao Zou (School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University) for helpful support in data fitting using MATLAB^® tool.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/ijfe-2018-0397).

Received: 2018-11-21

Revised: 2019-03-01

Accepted: 2019-03-17

Published Online: 2019-04-02

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