Computational and experimental methods for the on-line measurement of the apparent viscosity of a crystal suspension

Abstract

This paper proposes an experimental method, based on the Metzner and Otto concept, for the on-line measurement of the apparent viscosity of a crystal slurry during a crystallization process. The first step of this procedure consists of the determination of the N p-Re-Fr relation for Newtonian liquids, for two impeller-tank configurations, chosen such that this relation is a bijective one. This is achieved both experimentally and numerically, using Computational Fluid Dynamics. In the second step of the procedure, the same impeller-tank configurations are used for the determination of the evolution of the apparent viscosity of the crystal slurry (non-Newtonian liquid) during a reference pharmaceutical crystallization process (Etiracetam - UCB). The paper concludes on the influence of the Particle Size Distribution of the crystals on the apparent viscosity of the suspension. For a given crystal mass fraction, the bigger the crystals are - and then the less abundant they are - and the smaller the span is, the smaller the apparent viscosity of the suspension is. © 2009 WIT Press.