Virus Filtration Membranes
27 May 2008, 14:28
Categories: filtration membranes
Since very small amounts of viruses with a size of tens of nanometers can cause severe damage to the entire bio-process, the filtration of viruses has to be pretty much perfect. Micro- and ultrafiltration technologies have been successfully used in numerous processes for virus reduction, but they are not 100% effective. Currently used ultrafiltration membranes still allow smaller-sized virus particles to permeate into abnormally large pores in the membrane.
Now researchers at Pohang University of Science Technology, in South Korea, have developed a new nanoporous membrane with good dimensional stability at higher filtration pressures, while maintaining high selectivity for the filtration of viruses. The membrane consists of a nanoporous block copolymer film—with pore size of 17 nm and a thickness of 160 nm—combined with a conventional micro-filtration membrane to enhance mechanical strength.
“We have already successfully employed nanoporous films for the filtration of the common cold virus,” says Dr. Jin Kon Kim. “These membranes exhibit uniform sizes of pores due to the self-assembly nature of their fabrication but they have some limitations such as low mechanical and chemical stability in order to be widely used for effective virus filtration. For instance, they show many cracks after a filtration process at high pressure, say 0.4 bar; but a high filtration pressure is necessary to increase flux and effectively filter waterborne viruses.”
Posted by: The Editors
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