SBIR Phase II: Anti-fouling surface modifications for purification membranes

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将解决生物制药加工中使用的膜污染的挑战。这种涂层的成功应用将使得能够增加膜寿命和各种生产流的产物产率，因为更少的有价值的化合物保留在膜中。这可以提高救生药物的生产能力，降低生产成本，并在某些情况下实现连续的生物制药生产。此外，膜的功能化目前涉及大量的环境有害溶剂，其在膜的使用期间可能是可浸出的。在当前项目中，通过利用不需要任何溶剂的引发化学气相沉积（iCVD）工艺避免了该问题。这种涂层技术也可以扩展到其他系统，包括废水净化，食品饮料生产，工业分离，以及依赖于类似functionalization.The第二阶段的目标医疗设备将是证明一个商业上可行的制造过程中使用iCVD过程中产生的多孔膜表面改性。在这个主题中的先前工作集中在反渗透膜的顶表面上的顶涂层，但是所利用的化学物质以前从未在膜过滤器的内部结构中被证明。在第二阶段的工作中，将通过使用现有的沉积设备来优化涂层的性能，以调整涂层化学和工艺条件，从而通过最大限度地减少蛋白质污染来最大限度地提高通量和吞吐量。这项工作的另一个主要技术目标是将目前的批量生产过程转化为适合大规模生产的连续卷对卷生产过程。本研究的结果将是一种经过验证的涂层化学品，在膜应用中有效且耐用，以及能够在当前膜制造标准范围内实施的优化制造工艺。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will address the challenge of fouling on membranes used in biopharmaceutical processing. The successful application of this coating would enable increase in the membrane lifetime and product yield of various production streams as less of the valuable compounds remain trapped in the membrane. This can increase production capacity for life-saving medicines, reduce production costs and, in certain cases, enable continuous biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Furthermore, functionalization of membranes currently involve significant quantities of environmentally harmful solvents, which may be leachable during usage of the membrane. This issue is avoided in the current project by utilizing initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) process which does not require any solvent. This coating technology can also be extended to other systems including wastewater purification, food & beverage production, industrial separations, and medical devices that rely on a similar functionalization.The objective of Phase II will be to demonstrate a commercially viable manufacturing process to produce surface modifications within porous membranes using the iCVD process. Previous work in this subject has focused on top-coats on the top surfaces of reverse osmosis membranes, but the chemistries utilized have never before been demonstrated within interior structures of the membrane filters. During the Phase II work, the performance of the coatings will be optimized by using existing deposition equipment to tune the coating chemistry and process conditions to maximize the flux and throughput by minimizing protein fouling. The other main technical goal of the work will be to translate the current batch process into a continuous roll-to-roll process that is amenable to large-scale manufacturing. The outcome of this study will be a proven coating chemistry that is effective and durable in the membrane application, and an optimized manufacturing process capable of being implemented within current standards of membrane manufacturing.