Electrophoretic Extraction of Cells/Particles in a Counter Current Extractor

Electrophoretic separation is a leading method for resolving mixtures
of charged macromolecules or cells. In the present work, a combination of free
electrophoresis and multistage extraction called Electrophoretic Counter Current
Extractor was explored. A simple mathematical model was developed to describe
the mass and heat transfer during the electrophoretic separation. In order to validate
the model and also to test the extractor, the extraction of fixed human Red
Blood Cells and Latex particles of different sizes suspended in phosphate buffer,
was performed at different electric field strengths. The experimental results were
found to agree reasonably well with those predicted by the model.