Best Practices in Particle Science and Technology

Session Chair:

• Chris Naunheimer, UOP, a Honeywell Company

Schedule:

Model Development for Particle and Tablet Coating

Carl Wassgren, Purdue Univerisy

Particle and tablet coating is a common unit in a variety of industries.  In this talk, several recent models for predicting inter-tablet coating variability are presented including a model for continuous coating, a combined discrete element method (DEM)-compartment-population balance model for batch coating, and DEM scaling studies for batch coating.

Prediction of Particle Interactions in a Spray Dryer Using Drynetics™

Matthew Walter, GEA Process Engineering

Since its recent introduction, Drynetics™ has combined Computational Fluid Dynamics with examination of the drying of a single droplet suspended in a drying gas to predict particle behavior during the spray drying process. Drynetics™ has allowed spray dryers to be more efficient, safer, smaller, of higher capacity, and with fewer operational headaches than in the past.
Drynetics™ allows the examination of how individual particles dry and how different drying parameters affect the dried product.  Use of the data from Drynetics™ facilitates process and product development without costly and time consuming experimental work in a pilot plant or production spray dryer.  Drynetics™ also may enable remote troubleshooting of an existing spray dryer.  Use of Drynetics™ may determine if a given feed will dry into hollow spheres, shriveled particles, “doughnut” shapes, etc. while providing insight into design of drying equipment and process parameters for attaining a certain type of particle.

Novel Clean Energy Technologies Utilizing High-Temperature High-Pressure Fluidized Bed Reactors

Raghubir Gupta, RTI International

At RTI’s Energy Technology Division, we are developing cleaner energy solutions, a number of which utilize fluidized bed reactors (FBR) at their core.
Today FBRs are recognized with numerous industrial applications. This rise is credited to their attributes of having better heat transfer and mass transfer, ability to operate continuously between different process environments, and potentially large commercial scale. RTI has been developing process-specific FBR units for a variety of technology applications including coal gasification, biomass conversion, CO2 capture and utilization, and syngas cleanup and conversion. In all these applications, we are designing reactor systems to handle high heats of reaction while balancing hydrodynamics and kinetics with minimal adverse side reactions. We have developed significant expertise in designing highly attrition-resistant particles while imparting chemical reactivity and scaled up the manufacturing up to 100 ton scales. The FBR process development has spanned from 1” FBR for initial screening to a 54” diameter transport reactor to handle 2 million SCFH of coal-derived syngas from a coal gasifier. 
This presentation will share our experience and expertise in designing, developing and implementing FBRs for various applications and the tools we have developed in helping us advance our technologies from lab-scale to near-commercial scale.

In-Line 3-Dimensional Image Analysis of Particulate Powers and Slurries 

Phillip E. Plantz, Microtrac

Many methods of particles size analysis are available to characterize powder and slurry distributions. Probably the most widely used instrumental methods are laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering. As part of complete characterization, the shape of the particles can offer information as to changes to chemistry, process variations, handling, transport and other causes of product variation. Further examination of these changes of shape can be determined by microscopy (Static Image Analysis – particle stationary) which while useful, can be time-consuming while having limitation as to number of particles examined and thus can have low statistical significance. As a result, it is desirable to have a large number of particles examined to lend statistical significance to the data. This is easily accomplished by automated image analysis in the dynamic mode (particles in motion). Particles in motion allow for 2-dimenional analysis, but in addition, can allow for 3-dimeional analysis as well. 3-dimensional analysis is particularly useful for obtaining information on particles that do not approximate a sphere or when agglomerates are present.  The advantage of 3-dimenisional analysis and on-line image analysis in various industries for a wide range of products will be described.