Specialty chemicals company LANXESS is extending its portfolio of products in the consumer care segment to include the new Lewatit PH 1074 HEP.

In addition to the decolorization of fermentation broths and sugar, it is particularly suited to the purification and intermediate storage of heparin.

LANXESS intends to use this innovative product to tap new customers in the pharmaceutical and bioprocessing industry and further strengthen its market position.

Lewatit PH 1074 HEP is suitable for the treatment and purification of products derived from biomass, as it supports the reliable capture and removal of organic substances with a high molecular weight. This means that liquid sugar syrups or complex process solutions such as fermentation broths, for example, can be purified and treated.

Sugar polymer heparin is used in medicine to prevent blood coagulation and venous thrombosis and is also applied as an anticoagulant, for example, during heart surgery and dialysis. Heparin is typically purified with ion exchange resins, as this produces a higher yield, activity and purity of heparin and similar end products in comparison with precipitation processes for purification.

Lewatit PH 1074 HEP helps extract the heparin from this complex mixture and then purify it. The ion exchanger can also be used to stabilize the heparin for transport and storage, which prevents the sugar polymer from breaking down.

The macroporous structure and special polymer matrix of the new Lewatit PH 1074 HEP help achieve optimum adsorption capacity and desorption properties. This is extremely advantageous in the recovery of high-molecular hydrophilic anionic organic substances, which, for example, are extracted from fermentation broths in the same way as heparin and other glycosaminoglycans (GAGs).