Crossflow microfiltration of cell suspensions

The application of crossflow microfiltration (CFMF) to processing cell suspensions was proposed in the 1970s. The intervening years have seen the scaling up of the technology to commercial operation and have been a period of intense research interest in the physics of the process. Flaschel et al. (1983) noted that the recovery of biomass (by ultrafiltration) appeared still to be in the phase of development. Later reviews particularly commented on the proprietary nature of much of the useful information required to assess the feasibility of CFMF (Hanisch, 1986; Brown & Kavanagh, 1987), but while the need for further publication of some information is still being stressed (e.g. Heath and Belfort, 1992), detailed reports from biotechnology companies of lab-, pilot- and full-scale applications are now appearing in the literature (Bailey et al., 1990, Sheehan et al, 1990; van Reis et al., 1991). The objective of this review is to describe the major factors influencing CFMF of cell suspensions with particular reference to the recent literature.