New Stable, High Flux Membrane for Osmotic Distillation of Labile Pharmaceutical

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This program will develop a new stable, high flux membrane for osmotic distillation (OD) as a concentration technique for the unprocessed pharmaceutical products from aqueous fermentation broths. Osmotic distillation (OD) is a potentially useful procedure to partially or totally remove water from thermally labile pharmaceutical compounds without exposing the pharmaceutical compounds to undesirable (high) temperatures. The two main issues to be addressed with osmotic distillation are the need: 1) for a membrane with a very high water transport rate, and 2) for a membrane that avoids wet out. This program addresses both of these issues by using a non-wetting, low surface energy, double-skinned microporous polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane that has high wet out resistance (that is, stability) and extraordinarily high water transport. CMS will develop the particular OD application involving dewatering of the enzyme L-lactase dehydrogenase. Tests on the before and after protein activity will be done at CMS under the direction of Professor Andrew Zydney at Penn State University. The processing stability of this enzyme is an excellent surrogate to determine the viability of the CMS OD process toward other labile pharmaceuticals. This development, once completed, will represent an application of CMS membrane technology that has considerable significance to pharmaceutical manufacturing.