Physical and Hydrodynamic Evaluation of Custom-designed Carrageenan-Nickel Composite Matrix and CommercialStreamline DEAE Adsorbent: A Comparative Study

Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) has been widely used as a promising technique in industrial downstream bioprocessing. In order to form a stable expanded bed the specific designed matrix is essential. In this study, a novel composite matrix, named Cg-Ni, has been fabricated using water-in-oil emulsification method for expanded bed adsorption process. The prepared matrices had regular spherical shape, wet density of 1.86 g/ml, followed logarithmic normal size distribution within the range of 70-270 μm and porosity of 94.647%. The bed expansion and operating flow velocity for the prepared matrix and Streamline DEAE were correlated with the Richardson-Zaki equation. Using measurements of residence time distributions, hydrodynamic characteristics in the expanded bed were investigated. The physical and hydrodynamic properties of the fabricated matrix were studied and compared with the commercial Streamline DEAE matrix. The obtained results indicated that the prepared Cg-Ni matrices showed appropriate expansion and hydrodynamic behavior in the expanded bed, which confirm good potential for using in expanded bed applications

Keywords:

Carrageenan-Nickel matrix , Expanded bed adsorption , Streamline DEAE , Hydrodynamic performance , Kappa carrageenan