Adsorbers for Decontamination and Leukocyte Removal

Membranes were originally developed as agents (filters, sieves) for solid-liqnid separations by mechanical means. In this context any interaction (adsorption) of the components with the membrane material was to be avoided. Recently however, the controlled (selective) adsorption of certain molecules on such membranes has become the object of intensive study. This does not mean that the primary sieving function of the membrane has lost its importance in such cases. Quite the opposite, it is the combination of the two functions of the membranes, sieving and adsorption, which opens up new possibilities for improving the efficiency of separation processes, especially in areas such as biotechnology and medicine (bioseparation). 

Synthetic Polymers for Biotechnolog and Medicine, edited by Ruth Freitag. 

In this chapter we attempt to find a correlation between the chemical nature of the membrane and its suitability to typical clean-up steps such as depyrogenation and leukocyte removal from blood-products. The experimental results of many investigators are compared in this context in regard to the time-average adsorption capacity and the time-average removal factor. The dependence of these two process parameters on the average pore size and the chemistry of the adsorptive membrane are also analyzed. 

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