A cuboid chromatography device having short bed-height gives better protein separation at a significantly lower pressure drop than a taller column having the same bed-volume

Evaluation of a Novel Cuboid Hollow Fiber Hemodialyzer Design Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

“…In this paper, we propose a radically different design for a hollow fiber membrane based hemodialyzer. This new design is based on the cuboid chromatography devices, which were developed in our research group as alternatives to conventional cylindrical chromatography columns [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. The basic hypothesis behind the cuboid chromatography devices is that the cuboid shape is a better option than the cylindrical shape in terms of flow uniformity for packed beds having large cross-sectional areas.…”

“…Therefore, a solute molecule traveling down the axis of a conventional column not only travels a shorter distance than a solute traveling down the wall of the column, but it also travels at a significantly higher average velocity than the latter (see Figure 2 A) [ 42 , 46 , 47 ]. The z 2 flow distribution and collection system, which has successfully been used in resin and membrane-based chromatography, addresses the problem of flow maldistribution by reformatting the separation media (resin or membrane) into a cuboid shape [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. The cuboid separation media are then fed from one side using a combination of a primary and a set of secondary channels and drained from the other side of the device using a complimentary set of primary and secondary channels (see Figure 2 B).…”

“…The cuboid shape of the media, coupled with the specific flow arrangement, makes the path lengths within the packed bed and the average velocities along these more uniform. This results in a more uniform flow of the mobile phase through the chromatographic media, leading to significant improvement in the quality of separation [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ].…”