Granulation Course
A one-day granulation course took place on Wednesday 27 June 2007 in the laboratories of the Particle Products Group (PPG), Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, The University of Sheffield.
Aimed at PhD students and those involved in granulation in an industrial context, it was run by Prof. David York, Mr. Nigel Somerville Roberts (P&G), Dr. Karen Hapgood (Monash University), and Prof. John Seville (University of Birmingham).
The course comprised 'hands-on' granulation experiments and also a variety of lectures, in order to explain the effects and problems of industrial granulation, and the current status of research.
Attendees acquired a much better understanding of granulation processes, gaining insight into this complicated field, to be able to solve their own processing problems.
Course contents:
- Elements of granulation technology – key technological issues, particle size distributions, properties of wet and dry assemblies of particles
- Equipment for granulation: low and high shear mixers – types of tumbling and impeller mixers, mechanics of powder mixing, design and scale-up issues
- Demonstrations – operation of high-shear mixer-agglomerator and fluidised bed agglomerator
- Understanding granule formation:
- a. Mechanisms in mixer agglomeration – mechanisms of size enlargement, effects of liquid distribution, binder selection, control of granule size
- b. Mechanisms in fluidised bed agglomeration – effects of liquid distribution and atomisation, effects of binder properties, control of granule size
- The complete process – flow sheet for the process, drying/cooling, classification and recycle, sensors for control of the process, case studies