Bovine serum albumin and myoglobin separation by size exclusion SMB

Abstract

The separation of the proteins Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) and Myoglobin (Mb) was achieved by Size-Exclusion Simulated Moving Bed (SE-SMB) and performed experimentally in the FlexSMB® unit, an SMB unit designed and built in the Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering. Before accomplishing the separation experiments in the mentioned unit, separation regions were computed by simulation based on a phenomenological mathematical model to determine appropriate operating conditions. The developed model was validated in advance, against fixed-bed dynamic adsorption experimental results, for pure component and binary mixtures. Then the SMB experiments were carried out, and purities of the Mb on the extract and BSA on the raffinate streams were 98% and 96%, respectively. The achieved recoveries were 80% of Mb on the extract and 94% of BSA on the raffinate. Lastly, productivities of 6.4 g_protein⋅l_ads^-1⋅day^-1 for the extract and 28.8 g_protein⋅l_ads^-1⋅day^-1 for the raffinate were obtained.

Keywords: Proteins; Separation region; Simulated moving bed; Size exclusion.