PROCESS FOR THE SEPARATION OF HIGH QUALITY BIOTECHNOLOGICALLY PREPARED COMPOUNDS BY CROSS-FLOW MICROFILTRATION

摘要

The invention relates to a process for the separation of biotechnologically produced valuable materials form a cell suspension by crossflow microfiltration to obtain an high specific permeate flux while retention stays near 0% for long periods. To enable crossflow microfiltration to be carried out on an industrial scale in biotechnology in the separation of biotechnologically produced extracellular valuable materials from a cell suspension, particularly in the separation of alkaline protease for recovering enzyme, under economically acceptacle conditions, alkaline protease of relatively high molecular weight, more especially enzyme >20,000 daltons, is separated from a fermenter solution using polysulfone tubes having micropore diameters of from 0.3 to 0.5 mu m at a rate of flow of the fermenter solution of from 3 to 6 m/s parallel to the membrane surface and with a pressure difference between the concentrate side and the permeate side of 2 bar, the ratio of the mean pore diameter of the membrane to the size of the microorganisms remaining in the concentrate being between 0.15 and 0.