Separation
Processes 
Research
Menu | Biochemical
| Food Engineering | Environmental
| Pharmaceuticals |
Polymer Science | Process
Systems Engineering | Reaction Engineering
| Separation Processes |
Doctoral
Program in Biotechnology |
Chemcial
Engineering Science |
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Several
faculty members are actively involved in highly
interdisciplinary research in separation science. The work
draws on a wide array of resources at the University and at
several pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical
companies in the area. Separation processes are of major
importance to these companies and this has led to active
collaborations. An area of current research is fluidized bed
adsorption of biomolecules. Fluidized or expanded bed
adsorption has been used as a primary recovery unit
operation to extract proteins from feedstocks without the
need for cell removal prior to adsorption. The separation
technique thus offers the advantage of product capture,
feedstock clarification and product concentration in one step;
examples include the recovery of recombinant human serum
albumin from mammalian cell cultures and separation of
cloned sialidase from E. coli fermentation broths. Current
research focuses on determining the fundamental processes
that limit the rate of adsorption. Especially designed
adsorption particles are studied in fluidized beds using both
lysozyme (as a model biomolecule) and industrially relevant
proteins. The goal is to develop an understanding of how
mass transfer and hydrodynamics couple in the fluidized bed.
Mathematical models taking into account the resistances to
mass transfer, equilibrium partition isotherms, and the
liquid-particle hydrodynamics are used to develop insight and
evaluate design configurations. Other research projects
include the adsorption of low-concentrated multicomponent
gas mixtures in cyclic adsorption processes, like pressure
swing and temperature swing adsorption. Experimental and
theoretical studies includes the tailoring of adsorbents for
specific separation problems, and the measurement of
adsorption kinetics as well as single and multi-component
adsorption isotherms. This information is collected in a
simulation code which is used for optimization and control of
the process.
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