Displacement chromatography

Displacement chromatography is a chromatography technique in which a sample is placed onto the head of the column and is then displaced by a solute that is more strongly sorbed than the components of the original mixture. The result is that the components are resolved into consecutive “rectangular” zones of highly concentrated pure substances rather than solvent-separated “peaks”. It is primarily a preparative technique; higher product concentration, higher purity, and increased throughput may be obtained compared to other modes of chromatography. Displacement chromatography is a chromatography technique in which a sample is placed onto the head of the column and is then displaced by a solute that is more strongly sorbed than the components of the original mixture. The result is that the components are resolved into consecutive “rectangular” zones of highly concentrated pure substances rather than solvent-separated “peaks”. It is primarily a preparative technique; higher product concentration, higher purity, and increased throughput may be obtained compared to other modes of chromatography. The advent of displacement chromatography can be attributed to Arne Tiselius, who in 1943 first classified the modes of chromatography as frontal, elution, and displacement. Displacement chromatography found a variety of applications including isolation of transuranic elements and biochemical entities.The technique was redeveloped by Csaba Horváth, who employed modern high-pressure columns and equipment. It has since found many applications, particularly in the realm of biological macromolecule purification. The basic principle of displacement chromatography is: there are only a finite number of binding sites for solutes on the matrix (the stationary phase), and if a site is occupied by one molecule, it is unavailable to others. As in any chromatography, equilibrium is established between molecules of a given kind bound to the matrix and those of the same kind free in solution. Because the number of binding sites is finite, when the concentration of molecules free in solution is large relative to the dissociation constant for the sites, those sites will mostly be filled. This results in a downward-curvature in the plot of bound vs free solute, in the simplest case giving a Langmuir isotherm. A molecule with a high affinity for the matrix (the displacer) will compete more effectively for binding sites, leaving the mobile phase enriched in the lower-affinity solute. Flow of mobile phase through the column preferentially carries off the lower-affinity solute and thus at high concentration the higher-affinity solute will eventually displace all molecules with lesser affinities. At the beginning of the run, a mixture of solutes to be separated is applied to the column, under conditions selected to promote high retention. The higher-affinity solutes are preferentially retained near the head of the column, with the lower-affinity solutes moving farther downstream. The fastest moving component begins to form a pure zone downstream. The other components also begin to form zones, but the continued supply of the mixed feed at head of the column prevents full resolution. After the entire sample is loaded, the feed is switched to the displacer, chosen to have higher affinity than any sample component. The displacer forms a sharp-edged zone at the head of the column, pushing the other components downstream. Each sample component now acts as a displacer for the lower-affinity solutes, and the solutes sort themselves out into a series of contiguous bands (a 'displacement train'), all moving downstream at the rate set by the displacer. The size and loading of the column are chosen to let this sorting process reach completion before the components reach the bottom of the column. The solutes appear at the bottom of the column as a series of contiguous zones, each consisting of one purified component, with the concentration within each individual zone effectively uniform. After the last solute has been eluted, it is necessary to strip the displacer from the column. Since the displacer was chosen for high affinity, this can pose a challenge. On reverse-phase materials, a wash with a high percentage of organic solvent may suffice. Large pH shifts are also often employed. One effective strategy is to remove the displacer by chemical reaction; for instance if hydrogen ion was used as displacer it can be removed by reaction with hydroxide, or a polyvalent metal ion can be removed by reaction with a chelating agent. For some matrices, reactive groups on the stationary phase can be titrated to temporarily eliminate the binding sites, for instance weak-acid ion exchangers or chelating resins can be converted to the protonated form. For gel-type ion exchangers, selectivity reversal at very high ionic strength can also provide a solution. Sometimes the displacer is specifically designed with a titratable functional group to shift its affinity. After the displacer is washed out, the column is washed as needed to restore it to its initial state for the next run.