Development of a multi-compartment population balance model for high-shear wet granulation with discrete element method

� 2017 Elsevier Ltd This paper presents a multi-compartment population balance model for wet granulation coupled with DEM (discrete element method) simulations. Methodologies are developed to extract relevant data from the DEM simulations to inform the population balance model. First, compartmental residence times are calculated for the population balance model from DEM. Then, a suitable collision kernel is chosen for the population balance model based on particle–particle collision frequencies extracted from DEM. It is found that the population balance model is able to predict the trends exhibited by the experimental size and porosity distributions by utilising the information provided by the DEM simulations.National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister's Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) Programme

Development of a multi-compartment population balance model for high-shear wet granulation with discrete element method

This paper presents a multi-compartment population balance model for wet granulation coupled with DEM (discrete element method) simulations. Methodologies are developed to extract relevant data from the DEM simulations to inform the population balance model. First, compartmental residence times are calculated for the population balance model from DEM. Then, a suitable collision kernel is chosen for the population balance model based on particle–particle collision frequencies extracted from DEM. It is found that the population balance model is able to predict the trends exhibited by the experimental size and porosity distributions by utilising the information provided by the DEM simulations.NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)Accepted versio

Relevant phenomena and process parameters in granulation for manufacturing of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and zootechnical products

2017 - 2018Wet granulation is a size enlargement process used in many fields, such as pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, zootecnichal, etc., due its ability to improve technological properties of the final product, compared to the powder form, and/or to realize suitable delivery systems for drug/functional molecules for oral administrations/food preparations and/or to produce intermediate processing products. In spite of its widespread use, economic importance and almost 50 years of research, granulates manufacture is still based on empirical approach. Moreover, phenomena involved in powders aggregation are not well understood, and thus it is difficult to successfully obtain a product with tailored features without extensive experimental tests. In the scientific literature the approach to the granulation study is based on experimental tests, to investigate the impact of formulation and process variables on granules properties, or on modeling activities, to mathematically describe the involved phenomena. The two approaches, experimental and theoretical, are rarely applied together. In this study a novel integrate strategy of investigation was applied to elucidate the role of the phenomenological aspects, and their connection with the main operating parameters in granulation process, on the granules final properties, in order to develop physical-mathematical descriptions of the size enlargement unit operation, which can indubitably constitute a starting point for scale up purposes. ... [edited by Author]XXXI cicl