FhG CBP – Chemical/Physical separations

Fraunhofer CBP offers a wide range of equipment for physical/chemical downstream processing.

For evaporation it offers thin-film evaporation with ATEX admission and with a capacity of 50 litres per hour, which can be operated at a temperature of up to 350°C and falling-film evaporation with a capacity of 70 litres per hour. In addition spray, freeze, vacuum and filter drying are available.

For extraction, a liquid-liquid extraction plant is available in ATEX classification with a capacity of 85 litres per hour. Furthermore, Fraunhofer CBP has a high pressure extraction plant, which uses compressed propane or supercritical CO₂ and can be run in both, batch-mode or continuous counter-current extraction mode. It has a fully closed process with gas recovery and is operated with a mass flow of 10 kg/h CO₂ or propane and 2 kg/h feed (cf. Figure 1.3).

A low pressure liquid chromatography is available for separation of biomolecules
(proteins, peptides and oligonucleotides). It is equipped with aa AxiChrom 300/500 column and has  a working volume of        35 litres.

At Fraunhofer CBP also several distillation plants are installed, all of which are ATEX classified. Fraunhofer CBP offers both, batch and continuous distillation. The continuous extractive destillation for separation of azeotropic mixtures is operable at 20 to 160°C and 10 to 1013 mbar with a throughput of 10 litres per hour. A vacuum-high temperatur destillation plant is available, which can be operated at 20 to 250°C and 0.001 to 1013 mbar. Additional batch destillation plants can process between 100 and 1000 litres per batch.

For crystallization a batch crystallizer with a working volume of 800 liters is installed together with a filter drying unit.

For flocculation, a stirred precipitation tank with a capacity of 1200 litres is available which has the ability to actively cool down to 4°C. For evaporative precipitation a tank with a capacity of 430 litres is also available.

Several additional equipment is available for downstream processes such as a high-pressure homogenizater, which is used for cell disruption to produce intracellular products. It produces stable suspensions with a capacity of 400 litres per hour at a pressure of up to 1.000 bar. Furthermore, a pulp disintegrator with a capacity of 1000 litres is installed and readily connected to a screw press for dewatering.