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Welcome to the Membrane Learning Center, where you can read about membrane filter characteristics and their impacts on your processes. This knowledge, which has been gleaned from decades of research, can help you choose the best filter for your application.
How to Choose the Best Filter for Your Process
To select a filter, ask yourself the following 5 questions:- What are you filtering? Determine:
- Size and nature of the particles or molecules to be removed
- Chemical composition
- Temperature
- Viscosity
- What pore size or nominal molecular weight rating (NMWL) is required to achieve separation?
- Will this be a sterilizing filtration?
- How quickly do you need to filter? I.e., what is the volume and available processing time?
- Will you use pressure-driven or vacuum-driven filtration?
Membrane characteristics described below include:
- Chemical Compatibility
- Wettability Characterization
- Pore Size or NMWL
- Flow Rate
- Binding Properties of Filters
- Optical Properties of Filters
- Filter Housings
- Visual Characteristics
- Extractables
- Retentiveness
- Sealing Properties
Founder of Millipore
The Story of Millipore Membrane Filters
In the early 1950s, the Lovell Chemical Company, a small business located outside of Boston, Massachusetts, won a contract with the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to develop and manufacture membrane-based filtering devices to separate the molecular components of fluid samples.When membranes were declassified in 1953, Jack Bush, a Lovell employee, bought Lovell Chemical Company’s rights to the technology and established the Millipore Filter Company, named for a sponge that lives in the Adriatic Sea. Today, Merck still provides these membranes to customers with the same quality of manufacturing that was established decades ago.