Bio-Rad Foresight™ Chromatography Columns, Prepacked User Manual
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2 Technical Support: 1-800-424-6723 • www.bio-rad.com
Section 2
Theoretical Background
2.1 Batch Adsorption
Batch adsorption occurs when a liquid phase 
containing an adsorbate (i.e., target biomolecule, 
target impurity) comes in contact with a solid phase 
(i.e., chromatographic media) in a vessel under 
mixing. Batch adsorption is related to packed bed 
adsorption primarily in two ways. 
First, the mechanisms for mass transfer and ligand 
adsorbate interaction are the same for both batch 
adsorption and packed bed adsorption, meaning the 
reaction is independent of the mode of operation. 
This means that the adsorption data obtained using 
plates can be used to describe the separation 
occurring in a packed bed column. 
Second, a packed bed is an array of batch 
adsorption units connected in series with each unit 
representing a theoretical plate. In the case of a 
96-well filter plate, a single well is a batch adsorption 
unit, hence a well is considered a theoretical plate. 
2.2 Mass Balance
The mass balance of a solute between a solid and
a liquid phase in a batch system is represented as
follows:
 
Where C
0
and C are the initial and unbound liquid
phase concentrations, respectively. q represents the
bound solid phase concentration, V
0
represents the
initial liquid volume, and V represents the initial liquid
volume minus the liquid volume in the pores of the
media and the liquid held in the filter membrane.
Eq. 1
