ABSTRACT
About 10 years ago, Zhong and Guiochon stated in an earlier volume of this series with respect to simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography that “many expect it to modify considerably the landscape of industrial separations/purifi cations in the near future” [1]. This contribution will not give a detailed judgment on the current state of the industrial landscape. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that in the meantime SMB technology matured from an interesting academic engineering problem to a process that found its entry into the standard portfolio of most companies within the
pharmaceutical and fi ne chemicals industry as well as into the syllabus of university programs for chemical and process engineering, biotechnology, etc.
