A Sartoflow Slice of the action

The new Sartoflow Slice 200 Crossflow System from Sartorius, designed for laboratories using micro-filtration to concentrate and clarify animal, yeast and bacterial cells for the recovery of extracellular products, and ultrafiltration to concentrate and diafilter those products, employs a unique cassette format that allows quick and easy linear scale-up to pilot and production scale operations, a critical factor when using any r&d or preclinical device.

The system's basic components consist of a tangential flow membrane cassette within a holding device; pressure sensors; a stirred feed reservoir and CPU with peristaltic pump. A benchtop system, it is ideal for developing, characterising and optimising all microfiltration, ultrafiltration and diafiltration processes: where other microfiltration methods can take hours to concentrate down 10-20 times at 0.45γm, a typical Sartorius cassette has a flow rate of 30mL/min per cassette. A built-in alarm system prevents over-concentration and its PC interface allows for data logging and graphical analysis.

The Sartorius flagship membrane, Hydrosart, is a stabilised, cellulose-based membrane that is 'virtually non-protein binding and non-fouling'; exhibits high and consistent flux rates; and has low operating and hold-up volumes (<20 mL) that save time and money in product recovery. The membrane cassette is fully scaleable and has a wide variety of cut-offs and pore sizes from 2kD nmwco to 0.45γm.

The Sartoflow Slice 200 can also be used for the clarification of process debris and bioburden reduction of extracellular products, as well as the concentration and recovery of intracellular products after cell rupture.