Update on Research projects
23/4/2007
M3P (Measurement and Modelling of Multi-phase Processes)
Project cost is over £600,000 with significant support from Department of Trade and Industry. Other project participants are BP, Leeds University and BHRG.
Many industrial processes use stirred tank reactors which involve complex multiphase flows, requiring the impeller system to handle liquids, sparged gas, boiling, slurries and heat transfer. This project aims to develop and validate both measurement techniques (primarily electrical tomography) and robust CFD modelling methods for such challenging systems, and apply these to identified process(es). In doing so it aims to improve the efficiency of existing and aid the development of new designs in a unit process that it as at the heart of the manufacture of many pharmaceutical and fine chemical products.
A key output from the project will be a rapid electrical impedance tomography system which ITS plans to have available in Q4 2007.
In-line Sensing and Quality Control of High Concentration Sub-micron Nanoparticles
Project cost is also over £600,000 with significant support from Department of Trade and Industry. Other project participants are Malvern Instruments and Leeds University.
The objective is to develop robust methodologies for on-line process optimisation and control based on a complete multidimensional characterisation of the process and products. Manufacture of sub-micron / nanometre particulate products in high concentration suspensions is becoming increasingly important to the competitiveness of the UK pharmaceutical and speciality chemical industries. The highly complex and poorly understood physical and chemical behaviour of such systems has prevented existing single mode sensors becoming practical tools for characterising nano-particle suspensions. As a result, optimisation and direct on-line control of product quality parameters has not yet been possible for these processes. The project aims to develop a set of tools and methods based on a combination of new sensor technologies for dense nano-particulate slurries. The combined sensors are ultrasonic tomography/ spectroscopy, zeta potential, impedance tomography and a process sensor data mining system for data fusion and interpretation. The project will work with a range of applications from lab to pilot plant scale.
A key output from this project will be the combination of acoustic measurements with resistance tomography on a common platform based on ITS's m3000 instrument. Tests should be conducted during 2007.
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