Columns used for process-scale chromatography applications such as biopharmaceutical purifications typically have small bed-height to diameter ratios. Achieving uniform flow distribution within such columns is challenging and broad and poorly resolved eluted peaks are commonly obtained in separation processes employing such devices. Poor peak resolution could adversely affect purity, recovery and productivity of a separation process. The issues of poor flow distribution in columns has primarily been addressed through the design and development of improved column headers including those with tapered, parabolic or hyperbolic-shapes, and those incorporating collimators, radial channels, fractal surface distributors, manifolds, and anti-jetting features. Alternative approaches include the use of radial-flow columns for process-scale chromatography, and segmented parallel flow columns or curtain flow columns for analytical-scale separations. In this presentation, a radically different approach i.e. the use of a chromatography-box instead of a column is discussed. The design of the chromatography-box (or chromato-box) device which consists of a cuboid packed-bed is based on a laterally-fed membrane chromatography (or LFMC) device. The performances of different chromatography-box devices are compared with their equivalent columns. Parameters used for comparison include sharpness and asymmetry of flow-through and eluted peaks, number of theoretical plates per metre, and peak resolution in binary and ternary protein separations. Columns with small bed-height to diameter ratios were significantly out-performed by their corresponding chromatography-box devices.        <br/>

Chromatography-box-device for process-scale bio-separations

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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