The Use of Nanofiltration Systems in Synthetic Peptide Processes

Tangential flow filtration (TFF) process such as microfiltration and ultrafiltration has been widely used in the pharmaceutical industry for biologics to remove smaller molecular weight process waste from the proteins. Due to the nature of these membranes, this unit operation has been limited to aqueous systems and larger molecular weight assets. Recent advances in membrane technology have enabled the fabrication of membranes with significantly smaller pore sizes and composed of materials with markedly improved compatibility to organic solvents. These changes make TFF systems a useful alternative to precipitation, distillation and solvent exchange operations in synthetic chemistry steps in small molecules and peptide processes, and in particular for amorphous or thermally labile materials.

This presentation will highlight the use of nanofiltration as part of a synthetic peptide process to remove small molecular weight by-products, to concentrate reaction solution at low temperatures and to perform a solvent exchange between chemical transformation steps.