Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Haemoglobin extraction help

Falejczyk - 9-9-2011 at 10:25

This is my first time posting on this forum, even though I have been viewing it for a while now.


Does anyone here know how I could go about extracting haemoglobin from blood, then how to extract the iron from the haemoglobin? Any help is appreciated!

fledarmus - 9-9-2011 at 10:34

There is a simple method for extracting hemoglobin here, that was intended as a teaching lab project:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed050p347

Falejczyk - 9-9-2011 at 10:39

Thanks! Any ideas for extracting the iron? I was thinking trying maybe conversion to iron(III) Chloride, then an extraction of that from the solution.

Falejczyk - 9-9-2011 at 10:41

That is, removing the iron from the oxyhaemoglobin.

fledarmus - 9-9-2011 at 11:12

I would think the easiest way was just to burn it. Iron oxide should remain in the ash, while the protein would disappear as carbon dioxide and water, with traces of NO2 and SO3.

Or were you trying to keep the hemoglobin and remove the iron?

[Edited on 9-9-2011 by fledarmus]

Falejczyk - 9-9-2011 at 23:22

That seems like it would work. From there, a magnet could be used to get the iron oxide out and then reduced to elemental iron. Thanks, all! I'll post results when I finally get around to doing this.

Nicodem - 10-9-2011 at 01:10

Iron oxides are the only components of ashes obtained by complete burning of haemoglobin. There are no other metals in haemoglobin so there is nothing to separate iron oxides from.

Is this supposed to be for some kind of morbid art project? If so, just get some pure iron powder (commercially available) and bullshit everyone that this was derived from your blood. For artistic purposes it makes no difference if it is blood derived or not - the effect on the spectators is the same. It is also not possible to determine the origin of an element without determining the exact impurity profile (and even then...). Otherwise, I suppose you already checked the molar weight of haemoglobin? It is 24780 g/mol! At the optimal concentration of haemoglobin in the blood of 150 g/L, this means one litre of blood contains only 6 mmol, which at 100% isolation, 0% losses of Fe during the burning and 100% yield in the reduction would only give you about 340 mg iron. So make sure you don't display grams of iron or else somebody might not believe you it is blood derived - seeing you alive.

Falejczyk - 10-9-2011 at 12:12

It's more just me being morbid and curious about how much iron i could extract from my own blood. The ultimate goal is to have enough to put in an ampoule necklace, just as a curiousity. I do realize that getting that much could take years, decades even.

Would it be possible to do an ammonia reduction of the iron oxides to get elemental iron?

Arthur Dent - 10-9-2011 at 13:03

Quote: Originally posted by Falejczyk  
Any ideas for extracting the iron?


Ask Erik Lehnsherr, he knows how! ;)

Robert

Otter - 10-9-2011 at 15:03

Quote: Originally posted by Falejczyk  
It's more just me being morbid and curious about how much iron i could extract from my own blood. The ultimate goal is to have enough to put in an ampoule necklace, just as a curiousity. I do realize that getting that much could take years, decades even.

Would it be possible to do an ammonia reduction of the iron oxides to get elemental iron?


There's about 2.5g of iron in the gallon of blood people have in their bodies.

You'd have to pyrolyse a LOT of blood. :P

Mixell - 10-9-2011 at 17:27

Better donate that blood and ampule the corresponding amount of iron to remind yourself how many people you possibly saved :)