Agglomeration, breakage, population balance, and crystallization kinetics of reactive precipitation process

The agglomeration and breakage of particles play a significant role in determining final particle size distribution (PSD) and other qualities such as filtering characteristics and impurity content. In reactive precipitation processes, especially during the precipitation of fine particles, the agglomeration and breakage of particles normally cannot be neglected. In this study, the agglomeration and breakage of particles during the reactive precipitation process of procaine penicillin has been investigated experimentally through a continuous steady MSMPR crystallizer. Based on the population balance theory, a crystallization kinetics model including agglomeration and breakage is established, in which the breakage of particles is expressed by a two-body equal-volume birth function and a two-body power-law death function. The crystallization kinetics model is shown to be more suitable than size-dependent growth models as ASL and MJ2.