EXPANDED BED ADSORPTION AT PRODUCTION SCALE - SCALE-UP VERIFICATION, PROCESS EXAMPLE AND SANITIZATION OF COLUMN AND ADSORBENT

Expanded bed adsorption is a technique for recovery of biomolecules di rectly from unclarified feedstocks. The work described here demonstrat es that expanded bed adsorption is a scaleable technique. The methods used to test scaleability were ''determination of degree of bed expans ion'', ''determination of axial dispersion'' and ''determination of pr otein breakthrough capacity''. The performance of a production scale e xpanded bed column with 600 mm diameter was tested using these methods and the results were found to be consistent with the results obtained from lab scale and pilot scale expanded bed columns. The scaleability and function of the expanded bed technique was also tested by perform ing a ''process example'': a purification mimicking a real process usi ng a yeast culture spiked with bovine serum albumin as feedstock. The results show that the 600 mm diameter production scale column was as e fficient as a 25 mm diameter lab scale column in recovering bovine ser um albumin from the unclarified yeast culture. The production scale ru ns were fully automated using a software controlled system containing an adaptor position sensor and an adsorbent sensor. A cleaning study w as performed which showed that after use of a proper cleaning protocol , no surviving microorganisms could be detected in the column or in th e adsorbent.