03 JUN 2010
‘Spray drying has been used in the pharmaceutical industry for years for the drying of APIs, but the process also offers a range of particle engineering possibilities. Henrik Schwartbach explains why spray drying is garnering new interest and slowly but surely becoming part of the pharmaceutical industry's standard toolbox.
How is spray drying performed and what advantages does the process offer over alternatives?
In its basic form, spray drying is a very simple process where droplets/particles are dried while suspended in the drying gas, turning a liquid feed into a dry powder in a single continuous process step. The basic spray drying process has three essential steps: atomisation, where the droplets are formed; drying gas and droplet contact, where the liquid feed is turned into droplets; and finally powder recovery, where the dried particles are separated from the drying gas stream...’
The May edition of
Pharmaceutical Technology Europe featured an article by GEA Niro’s Senior Process Technologist, Henrik Schwartzbach, about the application of spray drying in the pharmaceutical industry.
Read more about the GEA Niro Pharma Test Station for spray drying process development and cGMP contract manufacturing.