Preparative electrophoresis for space

Abstract

A premise of continuous flow electrophoresis is that removal of buoyance-induced thermal convection caused by axial and lateral temperature gradients results in ideal performance of these instruments in space. Although these gravity dependent phenomena disturb the rectilinear flow in the separation chamber when high voltage gradients or thick chamber are used, distortion of the injected sample stream due to electrodynamic effects cause major broadening of the separated bands. The electrophoresis separation process is simple, however flow local to the sample filament produced by the applied electric field were not considered. These electrohydrodynamic flows distort the sample stream and limit the separation. Also, electroosmosis and viscous flow combine to further distort the process. A moving wall concept is being proposed for space which will eliminate and control the disturbances. The moving wall entrains the fluid to move as a rigid body and produces a constant residence time for all samples distributed across the chamber thickness. The moving wall electrophoresis chamber can only be operated in space because there is no viscous flow in the chamber to stabilize against thermal convection