By offering various lengths, membrane filtration areas, and module diameters, Cobetter hollow fiber modules can facilitate a smooth and predictable scale-up from laboratory to pilot-scale and eventually manufacturing-scale. Available from Mini, Minilab, Lab, Pilot, Pilot+, Process and Max.
Cobetter hollow fiber modules are made of modified polyethersulfone membranes(m-PES), which have high flow flux and low protein binding. They are easy to install, clean and sanitize, and are widely used in cell harvest, clarification, perfusion, diafiltration and concentration in upstream and downstream bioprocessing.
Compare with TFF Cassettes' tortuous and complicated flow path, hollow fiber filtration has a linear flow path which creates a smooth flow for more gentle separation.
Features
- Aseptic Process Assurance: For processes where bioburden cannot be sufficiently reduced using a 0.2 μm sterilizing-grade filter, heat sterilization hollow fiber filter can ensure aseptic operation
- Reusable Design: The membranes can be cleaned and reused for multiple times, reducing overall operating costs
- High Temperature and Pressure Resistance: Supports steam-in-place or autoclave
Applications
- Yeast, oncolytic bacteria, and other cell harvesting/purification
- Polycystic liposome concentration and diafiltration
- Continuous cell perfusion culture
- Aseptic concentration of lentivirus and adenovirus vaccines
- Aseptic purification of monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins
Share Rate
- The circulating flow rate of the hollow fiber depends on the product tolerance to the shear rate, in generally, it will be set at 2000/s to 10000/s, which is much smaller than the shear rate generated by the turbulent flow on the surface of the cassette screen.
- For general materials, we usually choose a shear rate of 4000/s to 6000/s;
- If the product is sensitive to shear force (such as lentivirus, coronavirus or macromolecular protein expressed by animal cells, large plasmids and LNP, etc.), the shear rate needs to be reduced to 2000/s;
- If the product is with good resistance to shear force (such as small molecular proteins expressed by bacteria, etc.) shear rate could be increased to 8000/s to 10000/s.
How to choose hollow fiber MWCO?
Sufficient separation efficiency and the risks of fouling should both be taken into consideration when choosing MWCO.
To minimize the risk of fouling that inevitably occurs during membrane processing, it is advisable to choose membranes with relatively smaller pore sizes, as long as the separation efficiency and flux are maintained. This helps reduce the intrusion of impurity particles into the membrane pores, thus extending the membrane's service life.
Common processing scenarios are as follows:
- Heat source removal of small molecules in Chinese medicines: 5kD, 10kD
- Ultrafiltration and concentration of mABs, buffer exchange: 30kD, 50kD
- Concentration, purification and removal of virus: 100kD, 300kD, 500kD, 750kD
- Clarification of recombinant protein, antibody: 500kD, 750kD
- Concentration for bacteria: 500kD, 750kD
- Clarification of lysate: 0.2μm, 0.45μm, 0.65μm
Effective Length and Scale-Up
The process scale-up feature of hollow fibers is that direct process scale-up can be carried out as long as the effective length is kept the same.
On the contrary, due to the significant pressure drop difference between inlet and outlet that exists in different lengths, the internal pressure and flow velocity distribution of the flow channel also change correspondingly, so linear scale-up can not be performed on devices with different lengths. When processing with more fouling and high viscosity products, it is preferred to choose a module with shorter length.
