Effect of bioparticle size on dispersion and retention in monolithic and perfusive beds

Single-component pulse response studies were used to compare the retention and transport behavior of small molecules, proteins, and a virus on commercially available monolithic and perfusive ion-exchangers. Temporal distortion and extra-column effects were corrected for using a simple algorithm based on the method of moments. It was found that temporal distortion is inversely related to the number of theoretical plates. With increasing bioparticle size, retention increased and the transition from a non-eluting to a non-adsorbing state with increasing ionic strength became more abrupt. Both of these observations are qualitatively explained by calculations of particle–surface electrostatic attractive energy. Calculations also suggest that, for sufficiently large bioparticles, such as viruses or cells, hydrodynamic drag can promote elution. Under non-adsorbing conditions, plate height increased only weakly with flow rate and the skew remained unchanged. With increasing retention, plate height increased dramatically for proteins. Plate height was scaled by permeability rather than bead diameter to enable comparison among different stationary phases.