A continuum theory for multicomponent chromatography modeling

• A continuum theory is proposed for the modeling of multicomponent linear chromatography.
• A generalized van Deemter equation for multicomponent mixtures is derived.
• Transport phenomena are decoupled from the impact of the feed mixture distribution on the band broadening.
• The continuum approach can be used to solve inverse problems and estimate the feed mixture distribution.

A continuum theory is proposed for modeling multicomponent chromatographic systems under linear conditions. The model is based on the description of complex mixtures, possibly involving tens or hundreds of solutes, by a continuum. The present approach is shown to be very efficient when dealing with a large number of similar components presenting close elution behaviors and whose individual analytical characterization is impossible. Moreover, approximating complex mixtures by continuous distributions of solutes reduces the required number of model parameters to the few ones specific to the characterization of the selected continuous distributions. Therefore, in the frame of the continuum theory, the simulation of large multicomponent systems gets simplified and the computational effectiveness of the chromatographic model is thus dramatically improved.