Abstract
Pre-packed chromatography columns and cassette filtration units offer
many advantages in bioprocessing. These include reduced labor costs and
processing times, ease of storage, and enhanced process flexibility.
Rectangular formats are particularly attractive as they can be stacked
and multiplexed together for continuous processing. Cylindrical
chromatography beds have historically been favored even though their bed
support and pressure-flow performance vary with bed dimensions. This
work presents the performance of rectangular chromatography devices with
novel internally supported beds. They are compatible with existing
chromatography workstations and can be packed with any standard
commercial resin. The devices offer pressure-flow characteristics
independent of container-volume, simple multiplexing, and separation
performance comparable to cylindrical columns. Their internal bed
support allows mechanically less-rigid resins to be used at up to 4
times higher maximal linear velocities, and productivities approaching
200 g/L/h for affinity resins, compared to the 20 g/L/h typical of many
column-based devices. Three 5 L devices should allow processing of up to
3 kg of monoclonal antibody per hour.