Bioseparation refers to the separation and purification of a wide range of products produced via biological processes. The separation of biological products is typically difficult, involving a multi-step process, and the cost of separation can be a substantial portion of overall manufacturing cost. Bioprocessors may find that with conventional bioseparation, they cannot manufacture at scale or expand production while meeting regulatory requirements and profitability goals. There is a solution to these challenges on both the downstream processing and wastewater treatment sides of the bioprocessing equation: ZwitterCo Z-BioP membrane elements. Compared to current treatment options, processes using ZwitterCo superfiltration (SF) membranes may offer benefits, including lower cost of ownership, smaller footprint, lower energy costs, reduced cleaning costs, longer uptime between cleaning cycles, and water reuse.
ZwitterCo SF membranes offer unprecedented fouling resistance, intrinsic pore uniformity, and permeance recovery. This results in higher purity product, higher product yield, increased throughput, longer uptime, and lower CIP costs, which saves water and energy.
The goals for downstream processing include isolating target molecule(s), removing contaminants, and increasing product concentration. Current treatment methods use centrifugation, membranes, chromatography, and crystallization to meet these goals. However, bioprocessors experience challenges with these methods such as cutoff precision, product loss, low throughput, and frequent cleaning.
Another, sometimes hidden, resource in bioprocessing product processing is organic product recovery, such as nutrients, proteins, and high value molecules. For some, this generates a purified mixture that enables higher product quality and yield or turns a discharge cost into revenue by creating a saleable byproduct.
