Application of membrane-based preferential transport to whole broth processing.

Preferential transport in adsorptive membranes can be used to selectively remove biochemicals directly from fermentation broths. During preferential transport, an adsorbing solute is selectively transported across the membrane while nonadsorbing solutes and cells are retained by the membrane. This technique was used to separate lysozyme directly from a feed containing lysozyme, myoglobin, and yeast cells. We found that because the oscillatory flows used in preferential transport involve strokes that are close to symmetric, they are very efficient in alleviating cake formation due to cell deposition on the membrane surface. Theoretical results suggest that, by optimizing process variables, preferential transport can lead to a continuous concentrated stream of the adsorbing protein. (c) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biotechnol Bioeng 54: 581-591, 1997.