A Comparative Study of Agarose-Nickel Prototype Composite Adsorbent and Commercial Streamline DEAE Adsorbent: Physical and Hydrodynamical Assessments

Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) is an integration technology for capturing target bioproducts directly from unclarified feedstock, designing and applying a good adsorbent affects its performance. In present work,a novel matrix has been developed for expanded bed adsorption process. The prepared matrix was manufacturedusing water-in-oil emulsification method. Desirable adsorbents tend to be of small size, high density as well ashigh porosity. Here, the prepared matrices had regular spherical shape, wet density of 1.95, followed logarithmic normal size distribution within the range of 50-200 μm, mean diameter of 126.4 μm and 91.93% prosily. The Richardson-Zaki equation expressed the bed expansion and operation flow rate for the prepared matrix andStreamline DEAE. In addition, the theoretical prediction of correlation parameters (Ut and n) was also measured.To characterize the hydrodynamic properties in the expanded bed, the residence time distribution method was used. The physical and hydrodynamic properties of the fabricated matrix were studied and compared with those of the commercial Streamline DEAE matrix. The results indicated that the prepared matrices showed good expansion and stability in the bed and are thus suitable for expanded bed applications