Gradient SMB Chromatography

Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) chromatography is a unit operation in bio(chemical) process industry that is gaining more and more popularity. Possible reasons for the increasing popularity are the continuous operation, high selectivity and considerable savings in the consumption of solvents and resin. The aim of this project was to apply gradient solvent operation to the SMB technology. This decreases the solvent and resin consumption even more, and reduces the costs even more. In addition, less dilution of the product is achieved. Possible drawbacks of the technology are the complicated construction, laborous set-up, and mathematical modeling to get the initial process parameters. The project was financed by the Norwegian company Alpharma, AS, based in Oslo.