Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) is a preparative chromatographic technique which makes processing of viscous and particulate liquids possible.
However, a new generation of EBA columns has been developed, which maintain the bed in the expanded state during this phase, producing high-purity, high yields of e.g. MAbs [monoclonal antibodies] in even smaller volumes of eluent.
[2] Where classical column chromatography uses a solid phase made by a packed bed, EBA uses particles in a fluidized state, ideally expanded by a factor of 2.
[3] EBA can therefore be used on crude culture broths or slurries of broken cells, thereby bypassing initial clearing steps such as centrifugation and filtration, which is mandatory when packed beds are used.
In older EBA column designs, the feed flow rate is kept low enough that the solid packing remains stratified and does not fluidize completely.