Comparison of possible arrangements of five identical columns in preparative chromatography

Goal of the paper is to demonstrate how configuration of a certain number of identical HPLC columns influences on the effectiveness of the isolation of a target component. There are two extreme configurations: all the available columns are operated in parallel (provided there are enough pumps available) or all the columns are connected in series. Various combinations of columns connected parallel and in series are possible. Besides batch operation more sophisticated multicolumn arrangements allowing continuous separation are considered. In particular, in this work different configurations of five columns were examined. For illustration the separation of a binary mixture was considered. As the objective function the productivity of the less retained component has been used. A standard model capable to describe the propagation of chromatographic bands has been used to optimize the operating conditions for various possible multicolumn arrangements.