Vilas Patil

Fluidized bed dryer, either batch or continuous type are used extensively in pharmaceutical industry for drying of API’s in powder form for wet granulation, inert particle drying and the same unit can be used as a coater. Spray dryers are used when solutions or slurries are to be dried and when there is a requirement of amorphous particles. Particles of the dry products obtained in such way are very fine so after mixing with other components and granulation they can be directly used in tableting. When spray drying operation is co-current, that is, hot air is introduced into the dryer close to the atomizing device; there is no danger of overheating as evaporation rates are high. Thus slightly heat sensitive materials can be spray dried in such a configuration

Freeze dryers are most commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry for the drying of therapeutic proteins and vaccines. In freeze dryer the heat sensitive products can be easily dried as the drying is carried out at low temperature. In freeze drying as the moisture removal is done by sublimation, there is every possibility of retaining the original shape and structure of the material

In proposed work focus will be given on:

Characterization of the given pharmaceutical product in terms of heat sensitivity, glass transition temperature and so on.

Selection of proper drying systems for the pharmaceutical products

Experimentation and development of stepwise design procedure for selected drying systems such as fluid bed dryers, Heat pump assisted dryers, freeze dryer and spray dryer and so on.

Develop new combinatorial drying systems such as spray freeze dryer, heat pump assisted fluid bed dryer and atmospheric fluidized bed freeze dryer for heat sensitive products.

The use of filter cum dryer can be thought wherever the containment issues are to be addressed.