Suitability of Steric Mass-action Model for Ion-exchange Equilibrium of Micromolecule

The steric mass-action (SMA) model has been widely reported in the literature for ion-exchange and metal-affinity interaction adsorption equilibrium of biomacromolecules. In this paper, the usefulness of SMA model is analyzed for describing micromolecule ion-exchange equilibrium onto cation exchangers, CM Sephadex C-25 and Streamline SP. Batch adsorption experiments with ephedrine hydrochloride as a model adsorbate are carried out to determine the model parameters, that is, steric factor, characteristic charge and equilibrium constant. The result shows that the SMA model parameters of micromolecule cannot be obtained using the nonlinear least-square fitting method as protein’s due to the remarkable difference between the molecular mass and dimension of micromolecule and protein. It is considered that the small size of the adsorbates dealt with in this study justifies the neglect of steric hindrances arising from adsorbate bulkiness. Thus, the three-parameter SMA model is reduced to two-parameter one (i.e