Abstract
Pressure-dependent breakthrough of nanobioparticles in filtration was observed and it was related to depend on both convective forces due to flow and diffusion as a result of Brownian motion. The aim of this work was to investigate the significance of Brownian motion on nanoparticle and virus capture in a nanocellulose-based virus removal filter paper through theoretical modeling and filtration experiments. Local flow velocities in the pores of the filter paper were modeled through two different approaches (i.e., with the Hagen–Poiseuille equation) and by evaluating the superficial linear flow velocity through the filter. Simulations by solving the Langevin equation for 5 nm gold particles and 28 nm ΦX174 bacteriophages showed that hydrodynamic constraint is favored for larger particles. Filtration of gold nanoparticles showed no difference in retention for the investigated fluxes, as predicted by the modeling of local flow velocities. Filtration of ΦX174 bacteriophages exhibited a higher retention at higher filtration pressure, which was predicted to some extent by the Hagen–Poiseuille equation but not by evaluation of the superficial linear velocity. In all, the hydrodynamic theory was shown able to explain some of the observations during filtration.
Highlights
IntroductionAs the size of the particles is decreased, it becomes technologically challenging to achieve high separation efficiencies
Filtration is an essential step in many industrial processes
In order to investigate the effect of Brownian motion on particle capture, two approaches were taken; i.e., first finding the flow velocity where convective forces overcome Brownian motion and comparing with the local flow velocity in the nanocellulose-based filter paper
Summary
As the size of the particles is decreased, it becomes technologically challenging to achieve high separation efficiencies. This is especially true for particles featured with nano dimensions (e.g., proteins, viruses, bacteriophages, inorganic nanoparticles) since their behavior during filtration is different from that on the macroscale. Several industrial size-exclusion virus removal filters are currently available, virus breakthrough in filters with pores that are nominally smaller pores than the virus size have been described depending on the process conditions [2,3,4,5]. A decrease in virus retention capacity was observed in some membranes after the pressure release, which was ascribed to the migration of previously captured viruses. See Supporting Information for more information on previous observations of pressure-dependence in the removal of bioparticles in filtration [2,3,4,5,6,7]
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