Effect of organic antifoam’s concentrations on filtration performance

Abstract

The use of membranes is widely common in bioprocess industry to separate constituents of a liquid, especially during cell clarification process. Many has opted for normal flow filtration mode for this process due to the ease of handling of this technique as compared to tangential flow filtration. Meanwhile, antifoams are chemicals used in upstream process to eliminate the formation of foam throughout the course. It is normally used in conjunction with a nutrient rich broth that is used as a media to cultivate the cells. Some has claimed that antifoam may lead to premature membrane fouling, but some reported that the presence of antifoam may assist and improve the flux rate of the filtration process. This study investigates the effects of organic antifoam presence in a cell-free media on the performance of the filtration process, specifically normal flow filtration process. It was discovered that the presence of organic antifoam may be significant at 1.0% concentration of antifoam loaded in the sample which gives filtration capacity of 250L/m2 while filtration capacity was reported to be at 330L/m2 for samples containing 0.2% and 0.6% antifoam concentration. The flux rate profile has lower percentage reduction that ranges from 18% to 33% which resulted to final flux rate of approximately 700 – 800LMH for initial flux rate of 1000LMH and 27% to 46% reduction that lead to final flux rate of approximately 1000 – 1500 LMH for initial flux rate of 2000LMH.

Biodefoamer-Supported Activated Sludge System for the Treatment of Poultry Slaughterhouse Wastewater

“…The synthetic defoamer (antifoam A concentrate) used in the Syn-As contained active silicon. Solubility and hydrophobicity of a defoamer are essential for the effectiveness of the defoamer; however, these conditions are not favorable for the AS microbial culture [36]. Throughout the unsteady state, TSS removal in Syn-AS ranged between 5.2% and 86%, whereas through the transition state, it increased to 34%; during the steady state, the highest TSS removal obtained was 59% in the aeration tank.…”

A Machine Vision Approach for Bioreactor Foam Sensing

“…9,10 Furthermore, antifoam agents may cause fouling of filters and membranes in subsequent downstream processing applications and therefore accelerate material fatigue and decrease purification efficiency. 11,12 This underlines the need for a well-considered antifoam agent feeding strategy based on reliable sensor data. Established foam sensors in bioprocessing include conductivity or capacitance probes placed within the bioreactor.…”