Supercritical-CO2 Assisted Atomization for Pharmaceutical Spray Drying Applications: CFD Modelling and Real Time Characterization

Synopsis

The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly urged to reduce waste and produce efficient drugs. Commercializing a new drug may cost 1-2 billion USD and 10,000 failing drug candidates. Limited research has been reported on modelling performance of supercritical CO2 (scCO2)-assisted spray drying, a technology with promising adaptability to continuous manufacturing. This presentation outlines our research efforts to develop an accurate and computationally efficient digital twin of the process using Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling augmented by user-defined functions. Process analytical tools ranging from thermal imaging to real-time laser-diffraction based droplet/particle sizing were used to validate and optimize the model.