Difference between revisions of "Membrane filtration"

In membrane separation processes, the membrane acts as a selective barrier between two phases with the ability to facilitate or limit the transport of one or more components from one phase to another by the action of a driving force. This driving force can be pressure, concentration, electrical potential, or temperature gradient. The stream passing through the membrane is the permeate, whereas the stream containing the rejected components is the retentate. The most common applications in biotechnology are the separation of solid biomass from feedstocks, separation of production cells within a pre-treatment or a downstream process and separation of target dissolved substances from liquid streams.

For a membrane filtration in general no specific pre-treatment is needed since it is used to separate different fraction within a process chain. Sometimes it is combined with other separation technologies such as centrifugation.