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Thesis Format

Alternative Format

Degree

Master of Engineering Science

Program

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Supervisor

Bassi Amarjeet

Abstract

Liquid chromatography is an important downstream operation in the health care, biotechnology, biopharmaceutical, and bioprocessing industries. Its high resolving power is utilized to capture valuable materials such as therapeutic proteins, antibodies, peptides, and nucleic acids. Column chromatography relates to a separation and/or purification technique in which a stationary "bed" of a packing medium or resin is contained within a rigid tube. The column efficiency is measured in terms of Number of plates and Asymmetry. Column Efficiency loss can occur during packing, during storage and during transportation. The detailed study has been done for column sizes 2.5 cm and 5 cm inner diameter to improve column efficiency to the customer by studying the impact of Frit thickness, number of adaptor vanes and the effect of column internal smoothness. Column efficiency improved (19-38%) with reducing frit thickness, (15-25%) with increasing number of vanes and 10% with reducing column internal roughness. With the improvements achieved we can deliver more stable prepacked columns to the end user.

Summary for Lay Audience

Chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid (gas or solvent) called the mobile phase, which carries it through a system (a column, a capillary tube, a plate, or a sheet) on which a material called the stationary phase (like Resin) is fixed. The different constituents of the mixture have different affinities for the stationary phase. The different molecules stay longer or shorter on the stationary phase, depending on their interactions with its surface sites. So, they travel at different apparent velocities in the mobile fluid, causing them to separate.

In the present study we are dealing with Column packing for various types of resins used in pharmaceutical applications for the separation of proteins and other components. Better the quality of the columns packed, better will be the results of separation.

Quality of the column is determined by the parameters such as Asymmetry and number of plates. Asymmetry in layman terms is the column should have been packed fully tight without any air bubbles or any other impurities and suppose if we pass a liquid through the column bed, it will be distributed evenly and ultimately it will give better separation.

We study various options for improving the efficiency of the columns packed so that when the columns are used for applications or for any separation of components, it should give good results.

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