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Impact of agglomeration on crystalline product quality within the crystallization process chain
Author(s) -
Terdenge LisaMarie,
Wohlgemuth Kerstin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
crystal research and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.377
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1521-4079
pISSN - 0232-1300
DOI - 10.1002/crat.201600125
Subject(s) - economies of agglomeration , crystallization , context (archaeology) , process (computing) , product (mathematics) , quality (philosophy) , process engineering , crystal (programming language) , materials science , chemical engineering , computer science , mathematics , engineering , physics , paleontology , geometry , quantum mechanics , biology , programming language , operating system
The quality of crystalline products, defined by e.g. purity or crystal size distribution (CSD), is primarily dominated by crystallization conditions but influenced by further downstream processes like solid‐liquid separation and drying also. Through uncontrolled agglomeration within the crystallization process chain the purity or CSD can be negatively affected. Therefore, in context of process optimization, missing knowledge of the impacts on the final product can lead to product batches out of specification. To increase the understanding of agglomeration and to provide insight into the relevance of holistic process optimization the agglomeration behavior of L‐alanine crystals is exemplarily quantified over the crystalline process chain. For the quantification the agglomeration degree (Ag) and the agglomeration degree distribution (AgD) are determined. The results show that the product quality achieved after crystallization is significantly affected by agglomeration during drying. Especially if washing after solid‐liquid separation is omitted, a broadening of the CSD is observed. Moreover, the evaluation by the AgD indicates that the final product can be ‐ despite similar characteristics of the CSD ‐ highly different. Consequently, it can be concluded that the characterization of the product quality by the CSD alone is insufficient and the quantification of agglomeration is essential for process optimization.