Ruttan Hall B25
Join us for a seminar presented by Dr. Kamalesh K. Sirkar, a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
New Developments in Membrane Bioprocessing: Ultrafiltration and Membrane Solvent Extraction
When ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were first developed, researchers expected UF to successfully separate protein mixtures. The broad pore size distributions of UF membranes limited successful protein mixture separation to cases where the molecular weight ratio of the two proteins exceeded 5. Although high performance tangential flow filtration technique improved the separation capability, it was still unsatisfactory. We developed the Internally Staged Ultrafiltration (ISUF) technique wherein three UF membranes were just placed over one another in a stirred cell and UF carried out. We demonstrated extraordinary purification and very high recovery of individual species from the following binary mixtures: hemoglobin-BSA1; BSA-IgG2 (here BSA was a model for host cell proteins present in the eluate from Protein A chromatography). This technique has now been scaled up to a cassette by MilliporeSigma and high performance has been demonstrated3 for the two systems identified. I will present these results and discuss the complex interplay of solution pH, protein pI, membrane charge, concentration polarization, protein interactions, flux level etc.
Bio-based chemicals or fuels from microbial cultivation can be extracted out by a solvent via say, membrane solvent extraction (MSX) and/or recovered by distillation/pervaporation membranes. Using porous membranes, we had introduced nondispersive membrane solvent extraction many years back4,5 (licensed to Hoechst-Celanese who developed Liqui-Cel® modules (now, 3M)); in fact, the whole concept of membrane contactor technology was born. Existing techniques employ either hydrophobic or hydrophilic hollow fiber membranes and need to maintain a phase pressure difference. We recently developed hydrophobic-hydrophilic (Janus) membranes to facilitate a more convenient use of MSX6. I will discuss such membrane structures and other considerations for efficient bioprocessing.
1. Separation and Purification Technology, 312 (2023) 123363
2. Separation and Purification Technology, 354 (2025) 129245
3. Journal of Membrane Science, 737 (2026) 124658
4. Journal of Membrane Science, 20 (1984) 120-140
5. AIChE J., 34(2) (1988) 177-188
6. Journal of Membrane Science, 637 (2021) 119633
Kamalesh K. Sirkar is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Author of 230 refereed publications, 27 chapters, 40 US patents, 3 Canada patents, he has advised 41 PhDs, 47 MSs and 28 post-doctoral fellows. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering (01/11- 06/21). His coedited “Membrane Handbook” won the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for the Most Outstanding Engineering Work (1992). He pioneered the notion of microporous membranes as membrane contactors of immiscible phase-pairs. He invented the commercialized membrane solvent extraction technology for which Hoechst Celanese received Honorable Mention in the 1991 Kirkpatrick Award. His other innovations are: hollow-fiber contained liquid membrane technology; novel membrane technology for direct contact membrane distillation; multilayer ultrafiltration membranes for protein purification; membrane-based ozonation; dendrimers for CO2 separation; integrated filtration-chromatography technique for direct protein purification from a fermentation broth; solid hollow fiber cooling crystallization; porous hollow fiber-based anti-solvent crystallization; organic solvent mixture separation by reverse osmosis. He served/is serving in: Editorial Boards of J. Membrane Science, I&EC Research, Nanomaterials, Separation Science and Technology; Advisory Boards of J. of Membrane Science, Membranes; International Advisory Board, Indian Chemical Engineer (IIChE). A Fellow of AAAS (2008), NAI (2016), North American Membrane Society (NAMS) (2017), AIChE (2020), he received many awards/honors: Honorary M.Eng., Stevens Institute ('87); President, NAMS ('98-'99); Honorary Fellow, IIChE ('01); AIChE Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology ('05); Clarence Gerhold Award, AIChE Separations Division ('08); Alan S. Michaels Award for Innovation in Membrane Science and Technology (NAMS)('17); Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, Chemical & Biomolecular Eng. Dept., U of IL, Urbana, ('22). His book, “Separation of Molecules, Macromolecules and Particles: Principles, Phenomena and Processes”, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014 in the Cambridge Series in Chemical Engineering. His Google Scholar citations are 18,660 (h-index, 68).