In this article, the bed expansion behavior and the hydrodynamic and protein adsorption properties of the DEAE Spherodex M in expanded bed with mobile phases of different viscosities have been studied. The axial liquid-phase dispersion coefficient is found to be on the order of 10(-6) m(2)/s, falling into the common range from 1.0 x 10(-6) to 1.0 x 10(-5) m(2)/s observed previously in expanded bed operation. Because of the small size of the adsorbent, the high pore diffusivity of protein and the favorable column efficiency (low dispersion coefficient), the dynamic binding capacity (DBC) of bovine serum albumin (BSA) at 5% breakthrough in the expanded bed reaches over 80% that of the equilibrium adsorption density (EAD). Moreover, a theoretical model with unadjustable model parameters is used for the prediction of the breakthrough curves. Computer simulations show that the model agrees well with the experimental results at breakthrough less than about 50%. It indicates that the model is promising in the prediction of protein breakthrough behavior because breakthrough profiles at 5-50% breakthrough points are more important in practical applications.