Vibration packing of liquid chromatography columns

Andrés Martínez, doctoral thesis Technical University of Munich, 2020

Packed bed liquid chromatography is a key purification step in the industrial purification of bioproducts. A method for the 3-dimensional reconstruction of packed beds using X-ray tomography was established and used on polymethylacrylate and agarose-based media. Vibration and ultrasound were studied during column packing. Ultrasound reduced particle sedimentation but was not strong enough to compact consolidated beds, vertical linear vibration delivered denser and more efficient columns.

Publications

• Martinez A, Knaub K, Monter M, Hekmat D, Weuster-Botz D (2020): Improved packing of preparative biochromatography columns by mechanical vibration. Biotechnol Prog 36: e2950.
• Martinez A, Kuhn M, Briesen H, Hekmat D (2019) Enhancing the X-ray contrast of polymeric biochromatography particles for three-dimensional imaging, J Chromatogr A 1590: 65-72.