Chromatography Forum

Hello out there!

I am an undergraduate student and working on a group thesis about the purification of Paclitaxel form PTC cell broth. The problem is, that the whole thesis is theoretical and we have no chance to do some eperimental work on it. Soon we have to design a Process-Flowchart with all mass-flows. By the way, we should produce 50 kg/a with 99,5% purity.
We designed a nice cell-separation and an extraction-column. But for the purification of the Paclitaxel, especially the separation of the Taxanes, we do not know how to start. There are a few papers about the chromatographic separation, but they are all bad quality. No feasible info about the flowrates, the right adsorbens...and every author maintains his method is the best.
So, we dont know how to start and calcute the chromatographic sequence at all.
There is no support from our Prof. at all...he only tells us that we should exert.
Is it commen to Scale-Up a system from a very small scale to large scale with the consistensy formula and thats it?

Thx for your time and help!

Cheers
Chris

Go to www.waters.com, go to Search Applications and look in the Waters Application Notebooks. You will find an alphabetical index, where, under P, you will find:

Paclitaxel (Taxol)- Resolution of Impurities [Excerpt from Symmetry Applications Notebook]
Library No.: WA31763.117

and 2 other Taxol applications, with detailed information.

If you contact me, I can give you detailed information on how to scale a separation, and other things that might be useful for your team.