Separation of bovine serum albumin by foam fractionation with wire gauze structured packing column.

In order to enhance foam drainage, a novel foam fractionation column with the wire gauze structured packing was developed. The performances of the packing were evaluated by investigating its effects on bubble size, liquid holdup, enrichment ratio, and recovery percentage efficiency under different conditions using bovine serum albumin (BSA) aqueous solution as a model. The results showed that the packing could accelerate the bubble collapse, reduce the liquid holdup, enhance the foam drainage, and improve the BSA enrichment ratio. Specifically, the best BSA enrichment ratio was 21.78 at the liquid loading volume of 490 mL, air flow rate of 300 mL min(-1), feeding BSA concentration of 0.10 g L(-1), packing bed height of 300 mm, and feeding pH 6.2. It was 2.44 times of the BSA enrichment ratio obtained with the control column.