Rotor Stator Processing

在制药工业中，复杂配方用于将活性药物成分（即药物）以患者可接受的形式传递给患者，以提供药物效果-因此与配方相关的制造与药物生产一样重要。这主要是批量加工-一个关键的加工设备，在乳膏和软膏的生产是使用转子-定子高剪切均质机。这就产生了一个高剪切场，在连续（和不混相）连续相（例如水基）中产生分散相（例如油）的细乳液。本项目将采用计算流体动力学和实验相结合的方法来研究这些复杂材料的转子定子加工的流体力学。这方面的一个关键方面是考虑流体流变参数的复杂性，以及根据液滴尺寸分布判断的最终产品质量的最终影响。

Complex formulation within the pharmaceutical industry is used to deliver active pharmaceutical ingredients (i.e., the drug) to patient to give both medicinal effect and in a format acceptable to the patient - consequently the manufacturing associated with formulation is as important as the drug production. This is dominated by batch processing - a key piece of processing equipment in the production of creams and ointments is the use of a rotor-stator high shear homogenizer. This creates a high shear field which creates a fine emulsion of a disperse phase (e.g. an oil) within a continuous (and immiscible) continuous phase (e.g. aqueous based). This project will address the fluid mechanics of rotor stator processing of these complex materials using a combination of computational fluid dynamics and experiments. A key aspect of this will be to consider the complexity of the fluid in terms of its rheological parameters and the ultimate impact of this on the final product quality judged in terms of the droplet size distribution.