Modeling and Control of Continuous Countercurrent Tangential Chromatography

A model-based control system is developed for continuous countercurrent tangential chromatography. The mechanistic model is formulated as a distributed parameter system. The computational cost of the mechanistic model is reduced by reformulating the partial differential equations as ordinary differential equations via the method of characteristics. The model parameters are fit to experimental data for the capture of a monoclonal antibody from clarified bioreactor material. An control problem is formulated for the objective of maximizing system productivity subject to a constraint on the protein recovery, and analyzed to provide insight into the process parameters that strongly affect the closed-loop performance.