Microbiology and Bio-technology

Cell harvesting, clarification of broth, recycling of cells and separation of cell debris from extracellular products represent important potential applications of membrane technology in the emerging field of biotechnology. Membrane separation is a very advanced separation technique as compared to conventional separation methods such as rotary filter, sedimentation and centrifugation etc. The types of membrane operation like UF, MF have wide variety of application in fermentation downstream operation treatment in biopharmaceuticals industries for recovery & separation of valuable components.

Fermentation broth

The isolation of antibiotics from the fermentation broths using membrane technology involves one, two or three membrane operations in sequence depending on the cases. The first operation, directed towards the solid–liquid separation of fermented broths is, in general, a microfiltration (MF) or an ultrafiltration (UF). In both cases, a concentrate containing all the biomass of the broths and a permeate containing the antibiotic, salts and water are obtained. Furthermore membrane technology like dia-filtration can be applied to achieve more recovery of product without any phase change and saving energy. For example, microfiltration followed by reverse osmosis produces a clarified, concentrated stream that can be economically processed with standard evaporation and drying equipment. A variety of membrane pore sizes allows fractionation of specific components which is often critical to downstream processing. The preferred solution is to install a crossflow filtration system for optimization of energy usage and floor space

Separations / Recovery

We offer solutions for recovery of macromolecules like proteins after the fermentation process. Our membranes can be used to separate the proteins from the product and other media components added during the fermentation process. The recovered protein can be recycled back into the fermentation process. Some biotech applications use enzymes like cellulases, lipases, peroxidases etc. as catalyst for the reactions, and recovery of these enzymes for reuse is important for improving economics. We offer membrane processes that can be used for the recovery of different enzymes