Greetings everyone,
I am currently working on Aloe vera peel extract and a crucial step involves filtration through a 0.45 microns filter. However, due to the viscous nature (presence of polysaccharides) of my extract I can only filter around 1mL before the filter disc gets blocked.
for more context, my sample is pre-treated with a serial centrifugation step (1000xg, 3000xg, 10,000xg) to be cleared of any large debris. I also cannot heat up my sample beyond 25C nor carry out any ethanol treatments.
How can I reduce my sample's viscosity and/or filter it?
Thanks in advance.
Dear Malak Atef ,
This certainly sounds like a complex situation. I am not fully sure if this will help, but the first thing I would do is (if possible), use a bigger filter (maybe 1 micron?). If that is not happening, maybe a good solution would be to increase the filtration pressure before the filter, and also add vacuum after the filter, to increase the pressure drop. Another option might be to use a 0.45 micron filter, but with a bigger area.
Just as a last idea: maybe changing the material of the filter (instead of PTFE, something else?) might help a bit.
Hope some of this helps!
Best of luck!
Hi Agustin Forchetti Casarino !
I was actually using nylon filters but I am currently looking into other types as well, mainly glass fiber type A filters (with pore size of 1.6 microns).
Will report back with results.
Another possibility is to dilute your sample with solvent. As these polysaccharides probably show non-Newtonian viscosity behaviour, dilution by a factor 2 may already have a large effect.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Organizational Psychology
- Training