Sartorius Stedim Biotech Sartoguard NF prefilter series

Sartorius Stedim Biotech has launched the Sartoguard NF prefilter series, completing its range of Sartoguard prefilters. The product features a combination of high-performance polyethersulfone (PES) membranes and innovative nanofleece technology. This is said to be the first time that PES nanofleece material is being used for liquid prefiltration applications in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

The nanofleece technology provides an ultrafine fleece structure based on a small nanofibre diameter of 120-150 nm, compared with the fibre diameter of conventional fleece materials of >500 nm. The resulting fleece structure offers enhanced clarification capabilities, even for extremely fine contaminants, along with a high dirt-holding capacity, fast flow rates and high total throughput performance.

The prefilters are suitable for downstream protection of expensive sterilising-grade and Mycoplasma-retentive filters in challenging prefiltration applications for biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Their ultrafine retention performance ensures the removal of even extremely small particulate-based contaminants.

All active filter materials - membranes and nanofleece - of the prefilter series are made of PES, thus ensuring a minimum extractable footprint. This enables users to easily implement the prefilters into existing filtration processes utilising final filters already based on PES.

Sartoguard NF filter elements are available in all common filter formats offered by Sartorius Stedim Biotech, such as SartoScale devices for small-scale filterability trials, as well as MidiCaps, MaxiCaps and standard filter cartridges for medium- and commercial-scale manufacturing. Sartoguard NF MidiCaps and MaxiCaps are said to be the first fully gamma irradiatable prefilter series and can be easily integrated into single-use process equipment.