Digital Design of Crystallization Process: Why particle size and shape matters!

Abstract

Population balance modelling is a widely used tool to understand the mechanism and kinetic parameters of crystal growth at the bench, to facilitate scale-up to Production. In this work, we present recommendations for particle size and shape analytical methods to improve the predictive capability of 1D and 2D population balance models for crystallisation of contemporary active ingredients. For 1D models, we report that the optical model for laser diffraction, a common technique for measuring particle size distribution, can significantly impact the growth parameters resolved from the model. For 2D models, particle image analysis of powders and single crystals give valuable length and width data to predict how the aspect ratio of particles evolves. Future work will be directed towards applying these tools when scaling a crystallization process.

Keywords

• crystallization
• population balance modelling
• laser diffraction
• particle image analysis