By Bala Raghunath, PhD, Wang Bin, Priyabrata Pattnaik, PhD, and Jeroen Janssens
Volume 11, Issue 1 (Spring 2012)
Tangential flow filtration (TFF) is widely used in biopharmaceutical processing for protein purification – a common application for TFF is ultrafiltration for concentration/diafiltration of proteins. In this type of application, the product protein is retained (concentrated) within the feed side of the ultrafiltration membrane, while the buffer components and other small impurities (smaller than the membrane pore size) freely pass through the membrane into the permeate side. Several scholarly articles are available in literature which discuss the ultrafiltration application as well as its optimization strategies. Another category of application where TFF finds significant use is in the clarification of cell culture bioreactor and microbial fermenter feed solutions using microfiltration membranes. In some of these microfiltration TFF applications (e.g., mammalian cell culture clarification), the product (protein) freely passes through the microfiltration membrane and is recovered on the permeate side, while the contaminating impurities (cells, cell debris, colloids) are retained on the feed side of the membrane. In certain other microfiltration TFF applications (allantoic fluid clarification in egg-based flu process), the product (flu virus) may get concentrated on the feed side of the microfiltration membrane (similar to an ultrafiltration step), while the contaminating impurities (ovalbumin, etc.) may get removed into the permeate side…
Citation: Raghunath B, Bin W, Pattanaik P, Janssens J. Best Practices for Optimization and Scale-Up of Microfiltration TFF Processes. BioProcess J, 2012; 11(1): 30-40. https://dx.doi.org/10.12665/J111.Raghunath
Posted online March 12, 2012