Integrated approach to crystallization process design for fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals

Designing a crystallization process that can recover the right product with a reasonably high yield and sufficiently high purity is often a key task in ensuring overall process feasibility in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industry. An integrated approach for crystallization process design which combines synthesis with modeling and experimental activities is presented. By first modeling the thermodynamic behavior of the system, feasible operating regions and the need for further experimental verification can be identified. Kinetics and mass transfer effects are considered next. Modeling of phase behavior and relevant downstream operations helps to design experiments and organize the results in a meaningful way, and more importantly, points to the right direction as to what should be done next, thereby minimizing the required time, effort, and cost for developing the process.