Potential of bio-products adsorption by immobilized metal ion affinity mesoporous adsorbents

Abstract

A separation process which involves the extraction of bio-products such as protein and antibiotics are called bio-separation processes. Bio-products are chemical substances or a combination of chemical substances that are made by living things and nature. They can be derived or extracted from whole plants and animal or by synthesis in bioreactors containing cells and enzymes. These bio-products are valuable in terms of their chemical activity such as methanol for its solvent activity, penicillin for its antibacterial activity, taxol for its anti-cancer activity and many more to note. This wide variety of bioproducts with different nature produces a wide range of bio-separation technologies and thus factors such as the nature of the products, purity, yield and activity will determine which bio-separations technology are the most suitable to apply. The biotechnology industry which started in the late 1970s increases the importance of bio-products as many products of biotechnology are proteins and antibiotics that are usually hard to purify leading to high cost (Harrison et al., 2003). In addition, of all the bio-separation technologies available today, some have their limitations including poor product yield, inadequate separation selectivity, high cost and many more. Therefore efforts to overcome these limitations must be made by attempting to modify and improve the existing bio-separation processes. Throughout this topic, the potential of adsorption based bio-separation technology will be discussed to extract protein and antibiotic by using mesoporous adsorbents, MCM-41 and SBA-15 incorporated with intermediate metal ions.