The separation of microscale HA in aqueous solution by foam separation technique

Hyaluronic acid (HA) has important applications in fields of health care products, cosmetics and clinical medical. However, the unique physiological properties of HA make cost of its traditional separation and extraction process relatively high. Foam separation technique has simple, gentle and efficient advantages on the separation of substances with surface activity by using bubbles as the separation medium. In this paper, natural surfactant CocamideBetaine (CAPB) was used as a foaming agent to explore the technology of microscale HA in aqueous solution by foam separation. The optimum process conditions were determined based on the recovery rate and enrichment ratio of HA by single factor and orthogonal experiment: at room temperature, pH = 7, separating air velocity (v) = 350 mL/min, HA concentration (C_HA) = 50 mg/L, adding liquid volume (V) = 200 mL, collecting time (t_col) = 10 min, CAPB concentration (C_CAPB) = 0.035 g/L. Under these conditions, HA enrichment ratio (E) equals 6.821 and HA recovery rate (R) equals 66.425%.