Effects of organic antifoam agent on filtration performance / Dyland Halbert

In bioprocessing, contamination events are often found to give a negative impact toward many organization in term of the lost batches and also production time. Filter are the main priority to handle this problem from ensuring the quality of product especially in biopharmaceutical from being effecting by unwanted impurities of particles. Another problem that can lead to contamination is foaming. Foam that are existing in the product will be minimizing and maximizing the product of interest, to prevent this, antifoam agent are introduced. The findings in the study emphasized on the dead end filtration performance includes the flux rates and it viscosity and loading filtration capacity on membranes filter. In this study, the concentrations of antifoam added into the solutions are 0.2%, 0.6% and 1.0% v/v and solutions were filtered using constant flow method. There are three types of membranes use to run the experiment which is Cellulose Acetate, Cellulose Nitrate and Polyethersulfone, PES. Result demonstrated that by using the PES membrane, the highest flux rate can be obtained which is 1810.720LMH with initial flux rate of 2000LMH. While for resistance, the highest that can be achieved are 0.0470 psi/LMH by using cellulose acetate for the initial flux rate of 1000LMH. Lastly, the highest viscosity that can be achieved are 575.9 cP by using cellulose nitrate membrane for the initial flux rate 2000LMH. The antifoam agent which is added to the solution may reduce the efficiency and cause negative effects on the dead end filtration performance and it filtration process. The findings in the study emphasized on the dead end filtration performance includes the flux rates and it viscosity and loading filtration capacity on membranes filter