Abstract—Supercritical antisolvent crystallization processes (SAS) exploits the unique properties of supercritical fluid to produce the micron size particles of pharmaceutical compounds. In this work, rifampicin which is an antibiotic drug mainly used for treatment of tuberculosis is considered as model drug. A thermodynamic model has been used to predict the solubility of rifampicin in the mixture of carbon dioxide and dimethyl sulfoxide. Peng-Robinson equation of state has been used to calculate the molar volume of binary mixture. All the model equations have been solved in MATLAB 7.1. It is observed that initial droplet diameter depends on flow rate and nozzle diameter. Mass transfer between this droplet and supercritical carbon dioxide has been studied and droplet diameter is calculated as it moves down. Effect of process parameters such as flow rate, nozzle diameter, pressure and temperature have been studied.
Index Terms—Supercritical, antisolvent, droplet, rifampicin, crystallization.
The authors are with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Jaypee University of Engineering & Technology, Guna– 473226, India (corresponding author: Rahul Kumar; tel.: +91-7544-267310; fax: +91- 7544-267011; e-mail: rahul.kumar@juet.ac.in, rahul.iitrahul@gmail.com, hari.mahalingam@juet.ac.in, kk.tiwari@juet.ac.in).
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Cite: Rahul Kumar, Hari Mahalingam, and Krishna K. Tiwari, "Theoretical Analysis of Mass Transfer in a Droplet Moving Down in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Environment," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 190-194, 2015.
