The performance of bovine serum albumin filtration by using polyethersulfone-Tetronic 304 blend Ultrafiltration Membrane.

Background: Membrane technology has been widely applied for protein purification. In applications for protein separation, a membrane with stable filtration performance is necessary. In this work, two types of hollow fiber membranes with different characteristic were used to study the filtration profile of bovine serum albumin. Methods: A single piece of hollow fiber module was used for ultrafiltration testing using UF0 and UFT304 membranes. Flux and rejection of BSA solution were collected based on a pressure-driven inside filtration model. Results: Ultrafiltration experiments showed that the flux of UFT304 membrane was higher than that of UF0 membrane in all applied pressure condition. Solute rejection reaches 90 and 88% for ultrafiltration of BSA solution on the operating pressure of 0.5 atm using  UF0 and UFT304 membranes, respectively. Conclusion: In general, UFT304 membranes has better ultrafiltration performance for BSA separation than UF0 membranes. The UFT304 membrane has a more stable flux for up to two hours of filtration.