Research
Depending on the target molecule and the application goal, several successive process steps are required for the isolation and purification of the end product in downstream processing. For an efficient process, the initial product concentration, which in the last few years has been growing steadily in biotechnological synthesis, is an important parameter. However, this leads to more and more limitations with conventional downstream processing methods, such as chromatography, filtration and extraction. The capacities and selectivities towards the target molecule are not sufficient enough to time- and cost-efficiently process the target molecule in a few steps. Depending on the number of steps or yield per step, the total product costs are therefore determined up to 50-80% by the downstream processing alone.
The objective of the specialist area for selective separation technology is to pursue new approaches in the field of bioproduct processing. To this end, new materials are developed and their interactions investigated in a fundamentally oriented manner. New process engineering approaches are also pursued and reviewed in the context of the overall process.
