Rotor Stator Processing

Complex formulation within the pharmaceutical industry is used to deliver active pharmaceutical ingredients (i.e., the drug) to patient to give both medicinal effect and in a format acceptable to the patient - consequently the manufacturing associated with formulation is as important as the drug production. This is dominated by batch processing - a key piece of processing equipment in the production of creams and ointments is the use of a rotor-stator high shear homogenizer. This creates a high shear field which creates a fine emulsion of a disperse phase (e.g. an oil) within a continuous (and immiscible) continuous phase (e.g. aqueous based).

This project will address the fluid mechanics of rotor stator processing of these complex materials using a combination of computational fluid dynamics and experiments. A key aspect of this will be to consider the complexity of the fluid in terms of its rheological parameters and the ultimate impact of this on the final product quality judged in terms of the droplet size distribution.