The present invention discloses a new and improved kind of chromatographic cake and its manufacturing methods and applications. The objective of this invention is to provide an improved chromatographic apparatus and methods for manufacturing such an apparatus, whereby the separation and simultaneous renaturation and purification of biopolymers can be efficiently performed with excellent results. The chromatographic cakes of this invention generally comprise a chromatographic packing cake with a mobile phase inlet and a mobile phase outlet, together with a chromatographic packing packed into an inner cavity region of the chromatographic packing cake. The ratio of the thickness to the diameter of the inner cavity region of the chromatographic packing cake is less than or equal to 1. A method of manufacturing such chromatographic cakes generally comprises the steps of: 1) Manufacturing the chromatographic packing cake, wherein the chromatographic packing cake includes combined upper and lower clamp plates having, respectively, a mobile phase inlet or outlet, and a cake body with at least one lateral hole or aperture; wherein the ratio of the thickness to the diametral dimension of the inner cavity of the chromatographic packing cake is smaller than or equal to 1; and, 2) adding chromatographic packing in whole or at least in part using the lateral hole(s) of the chromatographic packing cake to fill the inner cavity of the chromatographic-packing cake with a suitable packing material.