Adaptive concentration control of cooling and antisolvent crystallization with laser backscattering measurement

Abstract

This paper presents a thorough simulation and experimental evaluation of the concentration control approach for batch and semibatch crystallization. The sensitivity of concentration feedback control is assessed in the case of various disturbances that result in excessive nucleation events. The enhanced robustness of the concentration control is demonstrated against the widely used direct operation approach, which directly implements the temperature or antisolvent addition rate versus time. An adaptive concentration control strategy is proposed that employs measurement of the number of particle counts per unit time provided by in situ laser backscattering, to detect the onset of nucleation and adapt the operating curve accordingly, further enhancing the robustness of the approach. Simulation and experimental results indicate that adaptive concentration control is robust to variations in the nucleation, growth, or dissolution rates due to scale-up or other changes in the process conditions. © 2009 American Chemical Society.