Granulator Process Solutions

Spray granulators are widely used for forming materials in industries like chemicals, food products and pharmaceuticals. A granulator's main purpose is to convert light, small powders into high-density free-flowing granulates. Accurate particle size measurement is extremely important in granulator processes. Malvern Process Systems instrumentation solves a multitude of granulator issues by:

• Tightening the overall size distribution
• Allowing direct granulator control
• Providing real time size analysis of the growing process

In this section

	Granulator Process Overview Granulator process solutions involve smaller particles adhering to each other in order to grow larger particles or agglomerates. Particle size is critical in a granulator process solution because if the particles are too large or too small they do not have the product characteristics important to produce light powders into high density free-flowing granulates.
	Granulator Concerns There are many variables in controlling a granulator process, ranging from feed rate of the granulator liquid to the resonance time of the granulator chamber. All of these parameters affect the particle size in different ways. With an on-line sensor, the particle size is measured instantaneously and continuously in real time helping to monitor and control the granulator process.
	Malvern Analyzers for Granulator Applications Complete online and at-line particle characterization systems appropriate to granulator solutions in the context of different industries.
	Case studies - For more information, see:
	Comparing In-Line and Off-Line Analysis of Fluid Bed Granulator A specialty chemical manufacturer installed Parsum probes to measure their granulator efficiency and compare the results to off-line manual sieve analysis.
	Milling Overloading Reduced by Process Understanding. A pharmaceutical company's milling overload problems were reduced by getting a better understanding of their comminution process.
	Optimizing Milling for Pilot Drug Trials A pharmaceutical manufacturer experienced difficulties in optimizing their comminution systems for pilot drug trials. The challenges arose from dealing with changes in particle size specifications and differences between products.
	Reducing the Milling Process Start-up Times See the start-up benefits that on-line particle size analysis has over off-line analysis in comminution circuits.
	Mineral Milling Optimization Many plants have to re-specify their comminution parameters for new product specifications. For example, a minerals manufacturer in Canada receives three or four requests each year to change the product.
	On-Line Sizing During Milling Reduces Loss of In-Spec Product During Product-Changeover A cement mill needed to minimize the amount of 'in-spec' product sent to 'off-spec' collection bins. Using Insitec systems they were able to better determine when the comminution product changed from a transitionary state to the final specification.
	Predicting Screen Failure in a Screen Milling Environment A Japanese manufacturer of agrochemicals was able to detect when the milling screen would break during comminution. The company is now working on ways of predicting screen failure with the aim of replacing the screens only when absolutely necessary.