Model Evaluation of Particle Breakage Facilitated Process Intensification for Mixed-Suspension-Mixed-Product-Removal (MSMPR) Crystallization

Abstract This work studied a system of single stage mixed suspension mixed product removal (MSMPR) crystallization with particle breakage controlled by wet milling. Conventional single stage MSMPR crystallizer is limited by its degrees of freedom, which makes the process performance largely depend on steady state crystallization rate only tunable by residence time and supersaturation. Breakage brought by wet milling is demonstrated in this work as a supersaturation-independent variable to manipulate steady state conditions. The simulation results show that wet milling can act as a promising process intensification tool that increases process yield and broadens attainable region of particle size. Breakage model is adopted from dry milling and incorporated to high resolution finite volume population balance model. Four cases that cover a wide range of nucleation and growth rates have been tested, and the process yield and particle size are studied as functions of residence time and wet milling tip speeds.