Impact of feed solution flow rate on peptide fractionation by electrodialysis with ultrafiltration membrane

Recently, processes combining an electrical field as a driving force to porous membranes have been developed for the separation of protein or peptide mixtures to obtain more purified products with higher functionality or nutritional value. The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of the flow rate on the productivity and selectivity as well as on the electrodialytic parameters of electrodialysis with an ultrafiltration membrane (EDUF) during the fractionation of peptides from a P-lactoglobulin tryptic hydrolysate. It appeared that the feed solution flow rate had no impact on the yield of the process but induced changes in the selectivity. In fact, increases in the flow rate decreased the migration of the peptides with limited electrophoretic mobility.