Towards next generation high throughput ion exchange membranes for downstream bioprocessing: A review

Ultrahigh‐speed, ultrahigh‐resolution preparative separation of protein biopharmaceuticals using membrane chromatography

“…This situation can only be remedied by making available to users, efficient membrane chromatography devices that combine high speed with high resolution. Hopefully, this paper along with others focusing on membrane device design [9, 10, 18, 22] will serve as a catalyst for this.…”

“…Membrane chromatography is a convective mass transport dominant separation technique that has been proposed as an alternative to resin-based column chromatography for applications such as purification of biopharmaceuticals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Some of the attractive features of membrane chromatography that were initially highlighted are speed, scalability, and amenability to single-use applications [6].…”

“…In a membrane chromatography device, the feed entering the inlet has to be distributed over a very large membrane frontal area, while the permeate emanating from an equally large membrane area has to be collected and directed toward the outlet. Due to the significantly larger cross-sectional area of the membrane bed, compared to the diameter of the inlet (or the outlet), there is significant macroscale convective dispersion both at the inlet and the outlet of membrane chromatography devices that are commonly used [9,10,18,19,22]. In a stacked disc membrane chromatography device, the macroscale convective dispersion is introduced due to the radial flow of fluid, first outward and then inward, in the two headers [18,20].…”

“…The main reason for the relatively limited use of membrane chromatography in the biopharmaceutical industry in mainstream high‐resolution purification processes is that the devices that are currently available in the market are poorly designed, making them totally unsuitable for such use [18–21]. These design deficiencies have been discussed in detail elsewhere, and ways to address these have been articulated [9, 10, 18, 22]. The common feature of all membrane chromatography devices that are currently available in the market is that the extent of solute dispersion within these is very high, which ultimately results in poor resolution [10, 18, 23].…”

Use of the Dispersion Coefficient as the Sole Structural Parameter to Model Membrane Chromatography

“…This technique was originally developed to overcome some of the drawbacks of packed-bed column chromatography [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], but the limited binding capacity of the first generation of adsorptive membranes has initially prevented its use at the industrial level, except for a few niche applications. With the development of new high-capacity membranes [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], research is needed to bring the technology to full maturity. Efforts to design new modules, studies to make membrane chromatography a continuous process and process intensification all point in this direction [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”