Molecular Weight

Molecular weight and size are two key properties of all macromolecules including biologically important and synthetic polymers. Performance and processability are directly related to these parameters.

Why Molecular Weight Matters

image of molecular weight Molecular weight is critical property of all macromolecules. Example application areas are manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals and pharmaceuticals and polymer research. In the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry, development scientists need to be able to correlate particle size to molecular weight in order to determine the proper MWCO (molecular weight cutoff) specification for ultrafiltration processing of biopharmaceuticals. If the correct MWCO is not determined, the cost of mistakes can easily add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per lost batch.

Another important industry that uses molecular weight is the pharmaceutical industry. Here, the proper molecular weight of the final drug is tracked by QC to assure that drugs are in the correct dosage range so as to avoid either being ineffective or creating an overdose event in use. In these industries, molecular weight is measured across R&D into production and also during quality control.

In polymer science, the molecular weight of a newly synthesized polymer is often measured by static light scattering. The vast majority of useful properties of new materials are related to the chain length of polymeric precursors, as well as the physical dimensions occupied by such chains. These measurements are essential for the production of performance materials.

Our BI-MwA can either be used as a standalone instrument or can be coupled with a GPC instrument. Options are available for both flow or batch mode. Our MwA instrument comes standard with 7 angles and can be augmented with the BI-DNDC, our differential refractometer for use as either an RI concentration detector or to determine the differential refractive index increment. For small macromolecules, the new 90PDP Debye plot option is available with our Nanobrook Omni for molecular weight determination. This is an excellent option if you need to measure particle size and/or zeta potential as well as molecular weight.