"Ultra-purity sodium alginate is widely used in tumor embolization therapy and other fields. Dilute gel can be used as a drug carrier and slow-release material to prepare gel microspheres, add cells, and enter the human body with porcine pancreatic islets and porcine brain cells. Due to the difficulty of extraction, it was only produced by DuPont before, and the price of 1 gram can reach US$800." Zhang Demeng, CTO of QDMY Bioengineering Materials Technology Group, said that QDMY realized the industrialization of tissue engineering grade sodium alginate, filling the gap in this field in China .
As the raw material, sodium alginate contains a variety of impurities and has a high viscosity, so it is difficult to purify, and there is no relevant process package that can be used. In addition, the preparation of ultra-purity sodium alginate requires a sterile environment, and due to its own characteristics, ordinary high pressure, irradiation and other methods cannot be used, and only process control can be performed, so it takes a long time. In response to these technical problems, Zhang Demeng and others have developed two patents for the preparation of alginate for implantation in the body and independently designed the process flow. Finally, on the basis of the successful laboratory preparation in 2018, the company produced 1 kg of ultra-purity sodium alginate in one month at the end of 2019, laying the foundation for industrialization.
QDMY and the China Institute of Chemical Physics have jointly developed the production process technology of sodium alginate. At present, QDMY has begun to produce 2 kg per batch and can produce 200 kg per year.
Ultra-purity SODIUM ALGINATE has three outstanding characteristics. One is high biological safety, and there is no degrading enzyme in the human body, and the theoretical ablation time is very long; the other is easy to control, and its existence time can be conveniently controlled according to its molecular weight; The third is that it will form a gel when it encounters calcium ions, and it has a wide range of application prospects. The ultra-pure sodium alginate is white powder, like tiny snowflakes.
QDMY can currently produce four specifications of ultra-purity alginate, among which sterile, ultra-low bacterial endotoxin products have the highest price. "We use food grade or pharmaceutical excipient grade water-soluble alginate as raw materials, and the yield is about 50%, which means that about 2 kg can produce 1 kg. The price of 1 kg of raw materials is 80 or 90 yuan, and the ultra-purity seaweed The value of alginate has increased thousands or even tens of thousands of times." Zhang Demeng said that the batch production cycle of the current production line has been shortened from the initial 21 days to 8 days, and the company produced a total of about 8 kilograms of finished products.