| dc.description.abstract | Whey is the most abundant by-product of the dairy industry and, although it has been discarded for a long time, today it is one of the main sources of protein with applications ranging from pharmaceutical to nutritional. Whey proteins are important sources of bioactive peptides, which may have antioxidant, antihypertensive and antimicrobial activities, among other effects. However, for the expansion of pharmaceutical and nutritional applications of whey proteins, it is essential to develop increasingly effective methods of obtaining and purifying them. Thus, section 4.1 of this work presents some of the main methods of lactoferrin (LF) purification, such as ultrafiltration and chromatography, along with the methods of magnetic separation and liquid-liquid extraction, which are still expanding. Patents related to purification methods developed and nutritional compositions enriched with LF are also presented. In view of the many advantages presented by magnetic separation, in section 4.2 a new magnetic adsorbent Fe3O4-IL-Ni2+ was produced and its ability to capture whey proteins was verified. Through a design of experiments, the influence of pH, temperature and NaCl concentration was analyzed on bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption and a second order model was fitted, leading to a regression coefficient of 94.51%. The adsorptive process was favored by pH values lower than 5, while temperature and NaCl concentration influenced positively, with the best ranges being, respectively, 30-50ºC and 200-700 mM. Evaluating the adsorbent Fe3O4-IL-Ni2+ ability to capture proteins directly from whey, it was found, through the electrophoretic profile in SDS-PAGE, that alpha-lactalbumin (α-LA), beta-lactoglobulin (β-LG), immunoglobulin (IgG), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lactoferrin (LF) proteins were successfully adsorbed. Therefore, with due scaling up and validation of the introduced method, there is potential for its industrial use, given the wide range of applications presented by whey proteins and the operational advantages of magnetic separation in relation to traditional methods. | |
