Options
2016
Journal Article
Titel
Procedure to evaluate the efficiency of flocculants for the removal of dispersed particles from plant extracts
Abstract
Plants are important to humans not only because they provide commodities such as food, feed and raw materials, but increasingly because they can be used as manufacturing platforms for added-value products such as biopharmaceuticals. In both cases, liquid plant extracts may need to be clarified to remove particulates. Optimal clarification reduces the costs of filtration and centrifugation by increasing capacity and longevity. This can be achieved by introducing charged polymers known as flocculants, which cross-link dispersed particles to facilitate solid-liquid separation. There are no mechanistic flocculation models for complex mixtures such as plant extracts so empirical models are used instead. Here a design- of-experiments procedure is described that allows the rapid screening of different flocculants, optimizing the clarification of plant extracts and significantly reducing turbidity.