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The Particle Products Group is interested in manufactured materials that are particulate in nature. This very broad area covers virtually all solid materials manufactured by the chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries as almost all such solids are produced in powder form. It also includes polymer particles and their development for nanotechnology. The questions we seek to answer are: What are the properties of a product? What processes are needed to create those properties? What are the rates of those processes? The research undertaken by the group can be surmised as: |
GranulationWe study high-shear and fluidised bed granulation as used extensively in the pharmaceutical and home and personal care industries. We investigate how the rates of the four processes active in a granulator; nucleation, growth, aggregation and breakage, can be linked to the instantaneous properties of individual granules. We use a variety of in situ measurement techniques to measure particle size distributions as well as off-line studies of groups of granules and even of single granules one at a time. By means of specialised equipment we can watch particles collide and deform under very well-defined conditions using high-speed video. We are learning how forces flow through such particles and how we can understand, control and model these processes. Read more at the Granulation Homepage |
CrystallisationWe use experimental techniques ranging from in situ studies by AFM of the growth of a single crystal face, through small and wide-angle x-ray scattering using synchrotron radiation, to particle size analysis using laser and other light sources. We have projects focussing on product quality in the pharmaceutical industries, crystal aggregation, polymorphism and crystallisation kinetics. More... |
Population Balance Modelling (PBM)Since most of our work is in linking the behavior of single particles to groups, or ensembles, of particles, we frequently write conservation statements and rate laws for these processes and together they form what are known as population balance equations. We apply this approach to all the above areas and to many industrial processes. More... |
Particle Suspension Processing (PSP)We are interesting in the study of the hydrodynamics and thermal behaviour of particles suspension systems. This is particularly focused on bubbling fluidised bed and processing (granulation, drying, coating), circulating fluidisation, pneumatic conveying and the new emerging technology of mico-encapsulation. These studies also include micro-scale particle-particle interactions in dry and wet suspension conditions and their role in fluidisation behavior. More... |
Polymer NanotechnologyWe are interested in the behaviour of pH responsive polymers for use in microscale actuators and as molecular motors. This work is complemented by our research in “nanoswimmers” with osmotic pressure driven polymer colloids. We are also studying the production of polymer vesicles to generate high levels of drug encapsulation and high vesicle yields. More (vesicles).. More(molecular motors).. More(nanoswimmers).. |
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Particle Products Group
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