Separation of gentamicin by foaming

In order to develop a more economical separation method and to determine the feasibility of such a method for the recovery of gentamicin from fermentation broth, a foam separation process was evaluated using a batch system. The effects of such process variable as surface‐active agent, pH, collector–colligent ratio, and the gas flow rate on the separation efficiency of gentamicin were studied. Form the experimental results, the optimal operating conditions selected were: pH below 9.0, collector‐to‐colligent ratio of 3, and airflow rate at 0.5 vol air/vol liquid/min. Under these operation conditions, the average recovery efficiency of gentamicin was 73% when sodium dodecyl sylfate was used as a collector. A mathematical expression for the foam separation rate was derived. The theoretically predicted values of separation efficiencies agreed reasonably well with the experimental results.