Design of a Continuous Tubular Cooling Crystallizer for Process Development on Lab-Scale

摘要

Continuous manufacturing of fine chemical, life science, and pharmaceutical products is under recent investigation in R&D. As cooling crystallization is an important unit operation for purification of products, continuously operated, scalable devices are required for process development on lab-scale. A tubular crystallizer was developed, based on the coiled flow inverter design. Experimental characterization proved a narrow residence time distribution of the liquid phase close to ideal plug flow. Counter-current air cooling allows for adjusting linear and curved temperature profiles. Unseeded operation with the L-alanine (water) system demonstrated that nucleation has to be actively controlled to successfully apply intensified continuous cooling crystallization processes.