COMPACT MEMBRANE SYSTEMS, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 400

Description

Project Summary Specific AimThere are numerous needs in the pharmaceutical industry to use and recover high purity solventsKey uses includehigh purity alcohol for various applicationsthe ability to develop low cost dewatering of solvents and a relatively gentle and simple process for dewatering solvent under mild conditionsCompact Membrane SystemsCMSproposes a novel membrane process that can lead to extremely high dewatering rates with high separation capabilities based on a totally perfluoropolymerPFPmembrane system operating under a wide rangealmost universalof operating conditionsCMS s dewatering process is compatible with existing pharmaceutical solventPSprocessingThereforefrom a chemical stability standpointit can be operated with alcoholsorganic acidsketonesamines and aprotic solventsto name a fewTo enhance the potential foruniversalPS dehydrationCMS will totally remove the porous support and also use PFP pottingProduct ConceptTo develop a universal membrane dehydratorUMDthe whole system needs to be PFP basedRight nowwhile the CMS membrane is PFP basedthe membrane sits on a hydrocarbon porous support and uses a hydrocarbonHCepoxy potting systemUsing proprietary processing technology in combination with our expertise in the synthesis and know how in PFPwe will fabricate UMD that eliminate hydrocarbon based components from the final productThis will be done byminimizing hydrocarbon based componentsandremoving hydrocarbon based components that are used in processingRecent EventsEPA has established new safeguards for hazardous secondary materials recyclingThe objectives of these new safeguards are to promote the economicenvironmentaland public health benefits of recycling wasteswith an emphasis on several industrial sectorsincluding the pharmaceutical industryOn averagepharmaceutical manufacturer use at leastkg of solvents to makekg of active pharmaceutical ingredientEPA has determined that the environmental impacts from solvents used as manufacturing and processing aids could be significantly reduced if the product life of solvents used for these purposes were extended to more than a single useSee letter of support from EPAExisting Separation TechnologiesThe commercial standard dehydration procedure is molecular sieve dryingPolyvinyl alcoholPVAmembranes have historically been the standard membrane dehydratorOur results show the CMS membranes are simplerbetter and dramatically more stable than PVA membranesProgram ObjectivesMilestonesThe key program objectivemilestone will be achieving areduction in contaminants being in the extracted solutions Narrative There are numerous needs in the pharmaceutical industry to use and recover high purity solventsincluding dehydrating solvents by a universal dehydration process under conditions less severe than boilingA universal membrane dehydratorUMDwould need to be totally perfluoropolymers based to prevent hydrocarbon contaminationUsing our unique processing technology in combination with our expertise in the synthesis and know how in perfluoropolymerswe will develop an UMD that eliminate hydrocarbon based components from the final product