(410c) Application of Membrane Technology for Metal Removal from a Reaction Mixture

Transition metals are known for their good catalytic properties. Commensurate with the reputation, their use in various chemical transformations has gone up in recent years. However, their use in homogeneous catalysis in reactions often results in high metal content in the product. For many industries, especially for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), such a high level of metal content cannot be tolerated, and the reaction mixture or product needs to be treated for metal removal.

Depending on the amount of metal contaminant, traditional, adsorption-based technologies may suffer from high adsorbent charge, long cycle times, and high costs. In this study we evaluate the application of membrane technology to remove metals from different reactions mixtures. In this presentation, we summarize the engineering methodology to develop a membrane process and touch upon scale-up considerations and challenges for successful technology implementation in a cGMP chemical pilot plant setting.

Mike W. Rasmussen, Manish S. Kelkar, John Hartung, Harsit B. Patel, Thaddeus S. Franczyk, Onkar Manjrekar, Geran Zhang, Elie Chaaya, and Nandkishor K. Nere are employees of AbbVie. The design, study conduct, and financial support for this research was provided by AbbVie. AbbVie participated in the interpretation of data, review, and approval of the publication.