Polyhedral foams offer large gas-liquid interfacial area associated with a small amount of liquid. Therefore, if a solute adsorbs preferentially at the interface, the concentration of the solute in the foam will be greater than in the solution from which the foam has been generated. This effect provides a simple method of concentrating materials which have a tendency to adsorb on the gas-liquid interface. This is particularly relevant to biomaterials like whole cells, proteins, enzymes etc., which are surface active and are present in low concentrations in the broth. Foam separation has therefore attracted considerable attention, and several reports exist in literature on concentrating cells, proteins and enzymes using foams.
Foam separation is based on the difference in surface activity of the components to be separated. A surface active molecule consists of a lyophobic and a lyophilic group. (As water is commonly used as a solvent, the lyophilic and lyophobic groups are called hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups, respectively). When dissolved in a solvent, the presence of lyophobic groups in the interior of the solvent distorts the solvent liquid structure, thereby increasing the free energy of the system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IISc/oai:etd.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in:2005/132 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Bhattacharjee, Samita |
| Contributors | Kumar, R, Gandhi, K S |
| Publisher | Indian Institute of Science |
| Source Sets | India Institute of Science |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis and Dissertation |
| Format | 3231885 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | I grant Indian Institute of Science the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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