Sterile Filtration | Sartorius

The Easy Choice for Sterile Filtration

Sartorius Sterile Filtration Solutions

Minisart® and Sartolab® Filtration Units & Systems for Sterile Filtration

Filtration removes particles and impurities from liquids and offers comprehensive solutions when different filtration volumes need to be filtered. Employing these solutions, typical samples such as buffer, media or reagents can be filtered to remove particles and avoid microbial contamination.

Sartorius offers a wide variety of products for sterile filtration. The Minisart® syringe filter portfolio is the optimal for smaller volumes, while the Sartolab® P20 and Sartolab® RF | BT portfolios are ideal for sterile filtration of larger volumes. To ensure sterile filtration with our product portfolio, all products with 0.2 µm are tested as follows:

  • Bacterial challenge test (BCT) 
  • Determination of endotoxin level for sterile products
  • Membrane types are certified according to USP class VI


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See Sartorius Sterile Filtration Solutions in Action

Sterile Filtration with Minisart® Syringe Filters

Learn how to use Minisart® syringe filters for sterile filtration of samples

Sartolab® RF | BT Filters

Watch a comparison between stand-alone and parallel clarification and sterile filtration of mammalian cell culture

Find the Right Sterile Filtration Solution

Our wide variety of sterile filtration units and systems are designed to support your laboratory needs. Utilize the following table to match various filtration techniques with best-in-class Sartorius filtration solutions.  


Minisart® Syringe
Filters

Sartolab® RF | BT
Filters

Sartolab® P20 &
P20 Plus

Syringe Filtration

 

 

Vacuum Filtration

 

In-Line Filtration

 

Available Sartorius Sterile Filtration Solutions

Minisart® Syringe Filters

A full range of filters dedicated to various sterile filtration applications

Sartorius offers Minisart® syringe filters for a wide range of applications, including sterile filtration. Our clean, safe filters are are almost completely free of leachables and extractables and possess ultra low absorption properties. Our Minisart® filters with acrylic housing (MBS) are perfect for sterile filtration and clarification of additives, buffers, reagents, drugs and gases.

  • Sterilization by filtration is the fastest solution for bacterial cell removal
  • Ready-to-use pre-sterilized and single-packed units
  • Non-sterile versions suitable for assemblies and subsequent sterilization

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Sartolab® RF | BT Vacuum Filtration Units

Convenient sterile vacuum filtration of cell culture, media, serums and buffers

Sartolab® RF | BT filtration units are designed for sterile filtration of volumes from 50 mL to 1 L.

As a complete system, the Sartolab® RF includes a receiver flask and filtration funnel. Sartolab® BT is a bottle top filter (filtration funnel) without a receiver flask, enabling customers to use their own receiver flasks and/or expand filtration capacity — depending on the particle load of the filtered liquid - by filling more than one receiver flask.

Sartolab® Bottles are available with four volumes (150 mL, 250 mL, 500 mL, 1 L) and are ideal complements to Sartolab® BT, bottle top filters.

  • Highest flow rates with a large filtration surface
  • No loss of protein due to a low-protein affinity membrane
  • Low hold-up volume due to optimized membrane support
  • Can be used as a stand-alone unit or with the Sartolab® Multistation, which allows parallel filtration of up to six samples

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Sartolab® P20 and Sartolab® P20 Plus Sterile Filtration Systems

Fast sterile filtration of aqueous liquids & cell culture media

Sartolab® P20 devices are ready-to-use pressure filter units for the sterile filtration of media and aqueous solutions in batches from 100 mL to 10 L. Sartolab® P20 Plus with an incorporated prefilter is recommended for difficult-to-filter solutions (i.e. media that contains serum).

  • Highest flow rates with a large surface of filtration (20 cm²)
  • No loss of protein with a low-binding membrane
  • Low hold-up volume due to optimized membrane support
  • Versions available with prefilter for high particle load solutions

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Sterile Filtration FAQs

We have established a correlation between bubble point and membrane integrity, ensuring reliable sterile filtration. You can follow the methods in the following video to test your Minisart® syringe filters with a hand-held bubble point measurement. 
 

Watch the Bubble Point Test Video

Non-sterile Minisart® types must be sterilized before sterile filtration:

  • Non-sterile Minisart® High-Flow, NML and NML Plus can be sterilized by ethylene oxide (EO) or by gamma irradiation
  • Non-sterile Minisart® HY can be sterilized by ethylene oxide (EO)
  • Non-sterile Minisart® NY, SRP and PES- can be autoclaved or sterilized by ethylene oxide (EO)
  • Do not sterilize non-sterile Minisart® syringe filters in the pouch and carton of the bulk pack
  • Sterile Minisart® products cannot be sterilized a second time

The non-sterile Sartolab® P20 can be sterilized by autoclaving or EtO sterilization.

Sterile filtration is performed using microporous membranes filters with a pore size of 0.2 | 0.22 µm or smaller like 0.1 μm. 

To obtain a sterile filtrate, we recommend using a sterilizing grade filter with a pore size of 0.2 µm. A sterilizing filter should be capable to withstand a bacterial challenge to retain a minimum of 107 cfu/cm² of B. dimunita.

Microporous membranes with rated pore sizes of 0.2 and 0.22 µm are defined by the FDA as sterilizing filters as they retain the organism Pseudomomas diminuta on the basis of a minimum of 1 x 107 colony forming units (cfu) per cm² of effective filtration area. Therefore, you can consider both as identical if certified for this retention rate. 

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