A Platform for the Development of Membrane Adsorbers

The preparation, screening and characterization of adsorptive membranes requires a deep knowledge of the behavior of all components of the functionalized material. Systematic studies on non-specific binding need to be performed on the base membrane material, on the spacer arm and on the complete functional material. The effect of different spacers in combination with different ligand molecules have been reported by several investigators, but the effect of the spacer arm ‘per se’ is generally disregarded. In this work, we would like to present a platform for the development and characterization of functional adsorptive membranes. To this aim, the results of a case study for the preparation and characterization of affinity membrane adsorbers for the purification of monoclonal antibodies will be discussed in detail. In the example chosen, a synthetic ligand was immobilized on microporous membranes using 1,2-diaminoethane as a spacer molecule. The effects of the membrane, the membrane-spacer complex and on the affinity membrane on non-specific and specific protein adsorption were measured and critically evaluated. The obtained results will be compared with the ones obtained with A2P affinity membranes.