Antibiotics
Antibiotics are metabolites with active functions which produced by bacteria, fungi, or other microorganisms in the process of living. Since penicillin has been used in clinical practice in 1943, there are hundreds of antibiotics discovered and many of them largely applied in the clinical practice.
Most commonly used antibiotics such as cephalosporins, erythromycin, and penicillin are manufactured by biological fermentation. The activities of antibiotics in the fermentation broth is very low, so a series of separation processes are needed in order to get the targeted purity. Since 1990s, new separation technologies have been widely applied in the antibiotic industry. Mainly including:
1. Use ceramic membranes to replace traditional methods to remove bacteria such as pressure filters and flocculation precipitation, which can improve the quality of the filtrate, reduce operating costs.
2. Apply nanofiltration membrane technology to concentrate antibiotics, replacing traditional evaporation concentration; Nanofilltration operate at low temperatures, which can minimize activity degradation, save evaporation costs, and improve product quality.
3. Apply continuous ion exchange technology instead of batch ion exchange to minimize resin loading and reduce chemical consumptions.
Typical Application (Cephalosporin C production)
Technologies can be offered by SmarSEP:
Ceramic Ultrafiltraion: one step filtration of Cepha-C broth, the membrane permeate quality is much better than pressure filter and rotorary vaccum filter.
Ion exchange(Adsorption): Macorporous resin is used to capture Cepha-C, while eliminate most of the impurities.
Nanofiltration system: to concentrate Cepha-C from several thousand to 50000 activity.