MMICAS

Purpose

MMICAS aims to investigate novel processing technologies (i.e., ultrasound energy and nozzle technology) for the continuous manufacturing of multiphase systems. A knowledge platform will be built, leading to a fundamental understanding of the technologies being studied and resulting in sufficient process knowledge to enable scale-up to industrial scale.

Concrete objectives and criteria

The new process windows for the continuous processing of multiphase systems that will investigated include:

• The use of ultrasound technology in flow for the generation of nano-emulsions, which are of great industrial relevance both for the production of functionalized nanocapsules and for the production of specialty polymers through mini-emulsion polymerization.
• The use of ultrasound technology and microfluidic nozzle technology for highly controllable crystallization processes, both with regard to particle size distribution and polymorphic selectivity. These processes are of great interest for a wide variety of pharmaceutical products.
• The use of microfluidic nozzle technology for the formation of highly monodisperse emulsions on the micrometer scale which can be converted to microcapsules. These microcapsules are of interest in a wide variety of personal care products.
• The use of ultrasound under acoustic streaming conditions for incorporation in a larger volume residence time reactor, in order to provide sufficient reaction times in multiphase systems while avoiding clogging and fouling and maintaining a narrow residence time distribution.

While a significant part of the objectives is theoretical at first , this leap in knowledge will eventually be translated into more concrete and tangible deliverables. Indeed, the above mentioned topics all share the same difficulty of the need to introduce a certain amount of energy into the system to form and stabilize the multiphase system, after which a certain residence time is needed to complete the reaction, either through a growth phase (crystallization), a reaction phase (mini-emulsion polymerization) or shell hardening and/or evaporation (capsule formation). Gaining the necessary fundamental knowledge to apply these novel
processing tools (ultrasound and nozzle technology) in a concerted continuous approach leading to a stable and scalable process will be the ambitious end goal of this project.