APPLICATION OF MEMBRANE-BASED PREFERENTIAL TRANSPORT TO WHOLE BROTH PROCESSING

Preferential transport in adsorptive membranes can be used to selectiv ely remove biochemicals directly from fermentation broths. During pref erential transport, an adsorbing solute is selectively transported acr oss the membrane while nonadsorbing solutes and cells are retained by the membrane. This technique was used to separate lysozyme directly fr om a feed containing lysozyme, myoglobin, and yeast cells. We found th at because the oscillatory flows used in preferential transport involv e strokes that are close to symmetric, they are very efficient in alle viating cake formation due to cell deposition on the membrane surface. Theoretical results suggest that, by optimizing process variables, pr eferential transport can lead to a continuous concentrated stream of t he adsorbing protein. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.