Population balance approach to model Ostwald ripening of silica using Gram – Charlier series expansion based closure

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Ostwald ripening is a main phenomenon responsible for growth of particles manufactured using colloidal methods. This paper considers mathematical description of the process using population balance approach solved by method of moments. However, in the case of particles’ dissolution which is a part of the process a closure problem is generated. A novel closure method for the moment – transformed population balance equations based on Gram – Charlier expansions is introduced. Due to its simplicity it allows to reconstruct the full particle size distribution in a stepwise manner giving an access to the pointwise values of the density function required to close the model. The introduced numerical scheme is further used to simulate several carefully chosen test cases including dissolution of solid particles and ageing of particles’ population. The mathematical model presented in the paper is then applied to interpret experimental results for batch precipitation of silica.