Experimental investigation and modeling of atomization aspects in spray drying for production of pharmaceuticals with inhalable size

Abstract

This paper reports on some theoretical and experimental investigation of spray drying technology to produce dry powdery pharmaceuticals for healing application via inhalation. A numerical simulation of the atomizing gas flow pattern in the vicinity of two-fluid nozzle is presented, which is then used to identify the key parameters of the spray drying process, namely the velocity of the atomizing gas in relation to liquid feed rate. The range of permissible atomizing gas velocities was determined and the effect of the atomizing gas velocity on the size of the resulting particles was quantified. Consequently, the method for the production of microparticles with an average size of 2.6 µm and a fairly narrow size distribution has been proposed.