Time scale based analysis of in-situ crystal formation in droplet undergoing rapid dehydration

The surface structure of crystalline particles affects the functionality of the particles in drug delivery. Prediction of the final structure of particles that crystallize easily within the spray drying process is of interests for many applications. A theoretical framework was developed for the prediction of crystal structure precipitating on the surface of the particle. This model was based on the dimensionless Damkohler number (Da), to be an indicator of final particle morphology. Timescales of evaporation and reaction were required for calculation of the Damkohler number. The modified evaporation time scale was estimated based on the time that is available for the crystal to precipitate after supersaturation. The reaction time scale was estimated based on the time scale for induction time. Mannitol was produced under different processing conditions in order to validate the theoretical model. Results showed for the high Damkohler numbers, the surface structure of the particle was rough, while smaller Damkohler numbers led to relatively smooth particle surfaces. Additionally, although the beta polymorph was dominant in all of the experiments, alpha polymorph was precipitated in the experiments with a large Damkohler number. The theoretical framework developed will be a useful predictive tool to guide the manipulation of particle crystallization in spray dryers

The role of the intermediate stage of drying on particle in-situ crystallization in spray dryers

In-situ crystallization of particles in spray drying has several advantages particularly for product quality modification in the pharmaceutical industry. This process was investigated in a counter current spray dryer using lactose as a model material by manipulation of the local humidity within the drying chamber. Sample collection and humidity injection at different location of the dryer were carried out to better understand the mechanism of particle formation and solidification which are essential components of in-situ crystallization. They revealed that particle formation can be delayed by local humidity elevation. Differential scanning calorimetry and XRD of the yields showed that humidity manipulation was capable to produce semi crystalline lactose of up to 90% crystallinity. The results confirmed that there is a critical period for crystallization such that extending this period would significantly increase the degree of crystallization. Comparison on different requirements of crystallization indicated that extending the time for nucleation and the growth at the critical period via humidity manipulation has the most significant effect on the in-situ crystallization process

Improvement of rheological and functional properties of milk protein concentrate by hydrodynamic cavitation

Spray drying at higher solids concentrations improves drying efficiency, and reduces the overall energy cost of milk powder production. As the performance of the evaporator prior to spray drying is limited by viscosity, several methods can be employed to reduce feed viscosity such as thermal pre-treatment or ultrasound. The method employed in this study was hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) on milk protein concentrate (MPC80). Rheological properties of the protein milk were observed to improve, with a reduction in viscosity by 20% and 56% upon the application of a cavitation rotor speed of 25 Hz and 50 Hz, respectively, due to the breakdown in protein gel structure and hence a decrease in the elastic modulus of the proteins. While HC did not adversely affect solubility, with the powders having on average a solubility of 97.5% at a reconstitution temperature of 50 °C, both bulk and tapped density increased when the emulsion was subjected to HC, owing to a reduction in particle size. This study therefore suggests the potential of using HC for a more efficient drying of high solids milk, while maintaining and/or improving the physicochemical properties of powders

A practical CFD modeling approach to estimate outlet boundary conditions of industrial multistage spray dryers: Inert particle flow field investigation

Industrial multistage spray drying systems often have limited in situ process measurements to provide sufficient information for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the primary drying chamber. In this case study on the spray dryer at Davis Dairy Plant (South Dakota State University), uncertainties were encountered in specifying the outlet boundary conditions of the spray drying chamber with two outlets: the side outlet and the bottom outlet leading to the second stage external vibrating bed. Using the available data on the vacuum pressure of the chamber, a numerical framework was introduced to approximate suitable outlet boundary conditions for the drying chamber. The procedure involved analyzing the ratio of the airflow rate between the two outlets and using a pseudo-tracer inert particle injection analysis. The goal of this approach was to determine a suitable range of outlet vacuum pressure that will lead to realistic particle movement behaviors during the actual plant operation. The protocol developed here will be a useful tool for CFD modeling of large scale multistage spray drying systems. Abbreviations: ARC: Australian Research Council; CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics; FFT: Fast Fourier Transform; MCC: Micellar Casein Concentrate; PRESTO: Pressure Staggering Option; SDSU: South Dakota State University; SIMPLE: Semi − Impilicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations; WPC: Whey Protein Concentrate

Numerical simulation of mono-disperse droplet spray dryer under the influence of nozzle motion

With the increasing demand of uniform particles in the fields of medicine etc., the research on monodisperse droplet spray dryer (MDSD) becomes important. The drying efficiency of the current MDSD facility has to be improved to realize industrial applications. In this work, the influence of several kinds of nozzle movement on the drying process has been thoroughly explored by silico experiments. It is found that the velocity of the nozzle movement plays a key role in drying efficiency improvement. The movement of the nozzle leads to a wider distribution of the final moisture content of particles, and this effect becomes less significant with the increase of the velocity of nozzle motion. For all motion types under investigation, the circular motion is superior to the other motion types. It is revealed that the change of droplet dispersion state due to nozzle motion is the main factor that improves drying performance

A reference-component coordinate system approach to model the mass transfer of a droplet with binary volatiles

A theoretical framework based on the reference-component centered coordinates was modified to enable the prediction study of the simultaneous absorption and evaporation of droplets consisting of two volatiles. A new equation of Robin boundary condition was imposed at the droplet-ambience interface, coupling with a new numerical scheme for solution. Experimental validation was performed with the following situations: evaporation of single pure droplet and bicomponent droplet, and simultaneous absorption and evaporation of droplet. The model predicted the mass profiles reasonably well for droplet evaporation while over-prediction was found for the case of simultaneous absorption and evaporation of droplet. Further preliminary evaluation has found the necessity to encounter the phenomenon of mass flux depression when predicting the simultaneous absorption and evaporation of droplet. This will provide a potential predictive tool for the processes which involves droplet absorption, such as antisolvent-vapor precipitation and gas scrubbing

On the effect of turbulence models on CFD simulations of a counter-current spray drying process

Accurate modeling of the flow field by means of capturing turbulence is crucial in CFD simulations. However, choosing the appropriate turbulence model remains quite challenging for simulating spray drying applications. Only a few studies have touched on this issue, although experimentally validated comparisons throughout the dryer are rare. This work aims to provide an assessment of five different turbulence models (RNG k − ε standard, BSL and SST k − ω as well as transition SST) in terms of the predicted flow field throughout a lab-scale counter-current spray dryer. None of the tested models could initially provide a satisfactory match with locally measured temperatures within the chamber. The popular choice RNG k − ε model led to highest discrepancies, while the k − ω variants performed only slightly better. All these models under-predicted the dissipation of the central hot air jet. Modification to the k − ω variant's characteristic constant to allow increased production of turbulence led to satisfactory agreement between the measurements and simulation results. Extended analysis revealed that different turbulence models produced significantly different drying histories. Only the k − ω SST variant with modified constant could provide predictions close to measured outlet particle moisture content and air conditions. The RNG model proved unsuitable due to unrealistic results with particle injection as well. The differences in predictions with injection among the models were attributed to different transient self-sustained air fluctuation behavior predicted within the chamber. This work will be useful in the selection of turbulence models which is fundamental to accurate CFD modeling of spray dryers

Effects of Edge Functional Groups on Water Transport in Graphene Oxide Membranes

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes assembled by GO nanosheets exhibit high water flux because of the unique water channels formed by their functionalized layer-by-layer structure. Although water transport in the GO membrane is in principle influenced by the functional groups at the edges of GO nanosheets, this is yet to be fully understood. To fill this knowledge gap, molecular dynamics simulation was employed in this work to gain insights into the influences of three typical edge functional groups of GO nanosheets: Carboxyl (COOH), hydroxyl (OH), and hydrogen (H). A well-controlled numerical analysis with complete isolation of the functional groups at the edges was undertaken. The results reveal that the COOH group has a negative impact on water transport because of its relatively large steric geometric structure, which resists water flow. By contrast, the OH group promotes water transport by uniquely "pulling" water molecules across the nanosheet layer because of its relatively stronger interaction with water. The H atom promotes water transport as well, mainly because of its low-resistance steric structure. Moreover, the size of the inter-edge hub has an apparent impact on the influence of these functional groups on water transport. The results suggest that in the design of high water flux GO membranes, it would be strategic to remove COOH edge functional groups while maintaining a mixture of OH and H edge functional groups

Genetic Diversity of PCR-Positive, Culture-Negative and Culture-Positive Mycobacterium ulcerans Isolated from Buruli Ulcer Patients in Ghana.

Culture of Mycobacterium ulcerans from Buruli ulcer patients has very low sensitivity. Thus confirmation of M. ulcerans infection is primarily based on PCR directed against IS2404. In this study we compare the genotypes obtained by variable number of tandem repeat analysis of DNA from IS2404-PCR positive cultures with that obtained from IS2404 positive, culture-negative tissue. A significantly greater genetic heterogeneity was found among culture-negative samples compared with that found in cultured strains but a single genotype is over-represented in both sample sets. This study provides evidence that both the focal location of bacteria in a lesion as well as differences in the ability to culture a particular genotype may underlie the low sensitivity of culture. Though preliminary, data from this work also suggests that mycobacteria previously associated with fish disease (M. pseudoshottsii) may be pathogenic for humans

Development of a multi-locus sequence typing scheme for Laribacter hongkongensis, a novel bacterium associated with freshwater fish-borne gastroenteritis and traveler's diarrhea

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Laribacter hongkongensis is a newly discovered, facultative anaerobic, Gram-negative, motile, sea gull-shaped rod associated with freshwater fish borne gastroenteritis and traveler's diarrhea. A highly reproducible and discriminative typing system is essential for better understanding of the epidemiology of <it>L. hongkongensis</it>. In this study, a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) system was developed for <it>L. hongkongensis</it>. The system was used to characterize 146 <it>L. hongkongensis </it>isolates, including 39 from humans and 107 from fish.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fragments (362 to 504 bp) of seven housekeeping genes were amplified and sequenced. Among the 3068 bp of the seven loci, 332 polymorphic sites were observed. The median number of alleles at each locus was 34 [range 22 (<it>ilvC</it>) to 45 (<it>thiC</it>)]. All seven genes showed very low <it>d</it>_<it>n</it>/<it>d</it>_{<it>s </it>}ratios of < 0.04, indicating that no strong positive selective pressure is present. A total of 97 different sequence types (STs) were assigned to the 146 isolates, with 80 STs identified only once. The overall discriminatory power was 0.9861. eBURST grouped the isolates into 12 lineages, with six groups containing only isolates from fish and three groups only isolates from humans. Standardized index of association (<it>I</it>^<it>S</it>_<it>A</it>) measurement showed significant linkage disequilibrium in isolates from both humans and fish. The <it>I</it>^<it>S</it>_{<it>A </it>}for the isolates from humans and fish were 0.270 and 0.636, indicating the isolates from fish were more clonal than the isolates from humans. Only one interconnected network (<it>acnB</it>) was detected in the split graphs. The P-value (P = 0) of sum of the squares of condensed fragments in Sawyer's test showed evidence of intragenic recombination in the <it>rho, acnB </it>and <it>thiC </it>loci, but the P-value (P = 1) of maximum condensed fragment in these gene loci did not show evidence of intragenic recombination. Congruence analysis showed that all the pairwise comparisons of the 7 MLST loci were incongruent, indicating that recombination played a substantial role in the evolution of <it>L. hongkongensis</it>. A website for <it>L. hongkongensis </it>MLST was set up and can be accessed at <url>http://mlstdb.hku.hk:14206/MLST_index.html</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A highly reproducible and discriminative MLST system was developed for <it>L. hongkongensis</it>.</p