Most biochemical separations in use today stem from the analytical, bench-scale techniques developed by the biochemists, including chromatography, precipitation and electrophoresis. While these methods have been successful on the scales for which they have been developed under prescribed conditions, they suffer from loss in resolution and effectiveness on scale-up. Moreover, by their very nature they are time consuming and are batch-type in their mode of operations.
The specific aim of this Phase I research is to explore the application of new concepts in protein and peptide purification utilizing reverse micelle extraction. The primary focus of the work is on the development of new liquid membrane and adsorption extraction processes for the simple and rapid recovery, purification and concentration of peptides and proteins. These processes have the potential advantages of being able to handle large volumes of solution in a stable and continuous operation. The membranes and porous bead adsorbents will be impregnated with organic solvents containing surfactants capable of forming reversed micelles which solubilize these solutes in the apolar solvent. Laboratory studies will be carried out with suitable model protein and peptide systems to determine the extraction profiles and the kinetic diffusion coefficients for the adsorption and membrane processes.
