Characterization and application of new macroporous membrane ion exchangers.

A new ready-to-use unit for high-performance membrane chromatography has been characterized. Its dynamic capacity, resolving power and protein recovery were measured at different flow-rates. The binding capacity was 0.5–2 mg/cm2 with a 95% recovery at 10 ml/min irrespective of the protein concentration up to 10 mg/ml. For very-high flow-rates (50 and 100 ml/min) the recovery was 90% and 70%. At these flow-rates, the maximum back-pressure was about 0.1 MPa and was independent of the filtration area. By increasing the filtration area, a proportional capacity increase was obtained, indicating an easy scale-up. High flow-rates had only a slight effect on resolution. This new adsorber was able to purify IgM from supernatant of cell culture of a human hybridoma in less than 8 min with a high degree of purity (95%).