Drying of Pharmaceutical Compounds - Predicting and Reducing Undesired Agglomeration

The manufacturing and process engineering of medicines such as tablets involves a complex sequence of individual processes, to generate the final oral solid dosage form (tablets or capsules). One of these essential processes is the drying of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) particles. API particles are commonly dried using a variety of agitated dryers, which in addition to drying perform the necessary task of mixing the particles, enhancing heat and mass transfer. This process of agitation during drying creates shear and stress fields within the powder mass, promoting agglomeration of particles. Undesired agglomeration in agitated dryers contributes to significant costs in troubleshooting and control of these processes, and adds to the economic strain of manufacturing process scale up. The aims of this research project are to identify and study the primary mechanisms of agglomerate formation in agitated dryers, and use this knowledge to develop useful tools to describe and predict agglomeration in agitated dryers.

The student will conduct experimental investigations to develop mechanistic understanding, and will also apply computational methods to develop predictive models for undesired agglomeration in agitated dryers. The successful student will join the particle technology research group at the University of Sheffield (https://www.ptgsheffield.com/), and will also collaborate with the global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.