Development of industrial scale Centrifugal Partition Chromatography

Centrifugal Partition Chromatography (CPC) is a special chromatographic technique where both stationary and mobile phase are liquid, and the stationary phase is immobilized by a strong centrifugal force. The main advantage is the cost-effectiveness, since it does not need any expensive and bulky solid stationary phase, and both quantity and quality requirements for solvents are less decreased contrast to standard liquid chromatographic techniques. CPC consists of series connected network of extraction cells, which operates as elemental extractors, and the efficiency is guaranteed by the cascade [1]. CPC instruments vary on scale from 50 mL to 25 liter, however all advantages are realized on bigger scale use in industry. Up to date there were no available instruments that could be used for purification on industrial scale.

Our team started development two years ago with the flow-simulation of the elementary extraction cells. By determining the drawbacks of the current extraction cells available, realized in dead-volume and back-mixing, we were able to develop a more optimal extraction cell, leading more efficient separation and outdating all current research [2].

All current studies show that our cells are way more efficient. We managed to do pH-zone separations of fatty acids with only 16 cells instead of 3200, at 1/5 pressure drop and 20x flow rate, unprecedent in the literature. We also managed to separate API intermediers at 0.3 L/g solvent consumption instead of 3.0 L/g. Our instrument is scalable up to 10 L/min of flow rate bringing an unbelievable industrial chromatographic performance.

Our research is past two prototypes and by the time of the conference we are expected to see the first ready-for-production industrial CPC. According to our expectations CPC can outperform 80% of current prep-LC separations in the next 10 years.

References:

[1] Berthod A. Countercurrent Chromatography, 1th edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2002.

[2] Schwienheer C. Evaulation of CPC separation efficiency for different types of chamber geometries on the basis of flow pattern and separation experiments, J Chromatogr A, CCC2014 special issue, in press