Technology Spotlight: Advanced 3D-Printed Column Technology: Can It Be Adopted to Regulatory Environments?

Bo Zhang from Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, recently published a paper highlighting the use of high-resolution stereolithographic 3D printing to fabricate monolithic columns capable of delivering fast, high-resolution separations with impressive reproducibility (1).

Among the highlights: a column-to-column and batch-to-batch retention time coefficient of variation (CV) of just 2.04%, rapid intact protein separations with resolution greater than 1.5 in under one minute, and successful preservation of antibody native states in hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC). These advances suggest a possible viable path toward more efficient and customizable platforms for biomolecule purification — and potentially even regulatory adoption in biopharmaceutical workflows, according to Zhang.

In the second part of this video series Zang discusses reproducibility benchmarks, the mechanics of stereolithographic printing, and how printed architectures may offer distinct advantages in preserving protein integrity and accelerating separations. View the short video here:

Reference
Wen, H.; Lu, H.; Zhou, Z.; et al. Large Scale Printing of Robust HPLC Medium via Layer‑by‑Layer Stereolithography. Anal. Chem. 2025, 97 (9), 5014–5021. DOI:10.1021/acs.analchem.4c05587

About The Interviewee

Bo Zhang is an associate professor at Xiamen University in China. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, serves on the Scientific Committee for HPLC2025, and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Separation Science. He also holds a position on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Chromatography A.

His training in separation science began in 1999 at the National Chromatographic Centre, part of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. He pursued a PhD in chromatography at the University of York in the UK from 2002 to 2007, followed by two years of postdoctoral research at Imperial College London. Since 2009, he has been at Xiamen University, where he leads a research group specializing in chromatography. His team's work focuses on column technology, the development of advanced chromatographic materials, and microfluidic systems for bioseparations