Binary Oscillatory Crossflow Electrophoresis

This project is being conducted by graduate student and 1997-98 Bayer Predoctoral Fellow, Richard Molloy, under the direction of advisor David T. Leighton, Jr., Ph.D., in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Notre Dame.

Recent research in biotechnology has identified the use of biochemicals as alternatives to solving environmental and pollution problems. While means of producing these biological species such as the fermentation reaction have experienced large improvements in recent years, difficulties in recovery of product have resulted in high costs and have limited overall scaleup. Electrophoresis has long been recognized as an effective and simple analytic technique for the separation of proteins and other charged biochemicals; however, attempts at scaling up to accomodate commercial volumes have experienced limited success. Recently our research group has developed and implemented a novel electrophoretic separation technique, Binary Oscillatory Crossflow Electrophoresis (BOCE). The technique utilizes the interaction of an oscillatory electric field and a transverse oscillatory shear flow to create an active binary filter for the separation of charged protein species. Numerical simulations indicate that preparative scale throughputs with high resolution are possible, while avoiding many of the problems associated with conventional electrophoresis methods. Preliminary experiments using single protein species have further supported model predictions and have identified key operating parameter ranges. In the upcoming year we plan to test these parameter ranges experimentally. Our goal is to demonstrate the BOCE technique as an effective large scale binary separation technique and as an attractive alternative to conventional biochemical recovery methods used today.