I’m having problems concentrating a large volume sample. I’ve been centrifuging but it takes over two hours and I’m losing a good portion of my protein. Do you have any recommendations for a better way?
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Yes, concentrating medium to high volume samples can be time-consuming and costly in the laboratory setting. Happily, there are some good solutions for concentrating up to 5L of sample in the lab setting, without having to resort to the high priced processing scale crossflow systems that require large mounting system and high capex investment. Below provides a rough outline of the technologies for lab-based ultrafiltration at the different volume ranges.
100uL to 500uL: Vivaspin 500 centrifugal concentrator (fixed-angled rotors accepting 2.2ml centrifuge tubes)
400uL to 2mL: Vivaspin 2 centrifugal concentrator (swing-bucket or fixed-angled rotors accepting 15ml falcon tubes)
2mL to 6mL: Vivaspin Turbo 4 or Vivaspin 6 (swing-bucket or fixed-angled rotors accepting 15ml falcon tubes)
4mL to 20mL: Vivaspin 15R, Vivaspin Turbo 15 to Vivaspin 20 (swing-bucket or fixed-angled rotors accepting 50ml falcon tubes)
20mL to 100mL: Vivacell 100 (most centrifuge buckets that fit 250ml bottles)
50mL to 5L: Vivaflow 50, 50R or Vivaflow 200 (cross flow / tangential flow filtration cassettes, only a 200-400ml/min speed peristaltic pump needed)
Depending upon the specific volume, it is likely either the Vivacell 100 or one of the plug and play Vivaflow TFF systems will enable rapid concentration of large volume samples. After concentrating to your desired concentration factor a low volume flush can be put through the Vivaflow cassettes to maximize recovery. Typical concentration times are; 250mL to <20ml in several minutes, ~1L to a concentration factor of 50 in <30 minutes and 5L in <75 minutes.
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