Z. Liu et al., CONTINUOUS SEPARATION OF PROTEINS BY HYDROPHILIC POLYMER SHIELDED MULTICHANNEL FLOW ELECTROPHORESIS, CHINESE JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, 5(2), 1997, pp. 141-146
Continuous separation of protein mixtures by multichannel flow electro
phoresis (MFE) was carried out in a 5-compartment electrolyzer partiti
oned by membranes. Polyvinyl alcohol(PVA), polyethylene glycol 4000(PE
G 4000) and polyvinylpyrrolidene K30(PVP K30) were applied to the MFE
as shielding polymers to prevent protein adsorption on the polyethersu
lfone microfiltration membrane, which was used to space the central co
mpartment and the elution compartments, during the electrophoresis pro
cess. The effects of polymer concentration on protein transmembrane fl
ux were examined. It was found that PVA, PEG 4000 and PVP K30 greatly
reduced protein adsorpton on the membrane surface. Continuous separati
ons of bovine serum albumin(BSA) and hemoglobin(HBB) mixture in the pr
esence of PEG 4000 yielded 26.6mg BSA 40.4mg HBB per hour. These resul
ts have shown a high potential of scaling up MFE for large scale separ
ation and purification of biomolecules.