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This document is an editorial from the journal Pharmaceutics, which celebrates its 15th anniversary and highlights advancements in process and formulation modeling in the pharmaceutical industry. The editorial emphasizes the significance of modeling in product development and discusses different types of models available to scientists and engineers. It also provides a summary of the articles included in a special issue of the journal, covering topics such as nanosuspensions, computational techniques, laser ablation, and wet granulation. The editorial concludes by summarizing the main findings from each contribution in the special issue. These studies offer valuable insights into improving drug delivery efficiency and enhancing pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. [Extracted from the article]

Spray drying is a widely used unit operation in synthesis of particles for production of chemicals, food, and pharmaceuticals. However, accurate control and development of this unit remains an elusive task because of the complex interactions of variables and phenomena. In this paper, we adopt and present a dynamic model of the complete drying process for a laboratory spray dryer. The dynamic mathematical model, which integrates atomization, evaporation, and particle formation models, is described by mass and energy balances. The model can predict temperature, residual moisture, and particle size of the produced powder. Model predictions are verified through datasets collected from a lab-scale spray dryer. A data-driven model based on the dynamic model is produced to interface with the control strategy. A model predictive control (MPC) strategy is then adopted to address the highly cross-coupled effects among different components of the dryer and guarantee desired product quality measures. Successful MPC implementation on the drying system is addressed, including trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automotive spray painting is among the most sophisticated and controlled industrial painting operations currently performed. Nevertheless, improvements in it are still sought in efforts to minimize the costs, the energy use and the environmental impacts. One compelling aspect of improvement is the paint transfer efficiency, i.e. the amount of paint that remains on a vehicle relative to the amount supplied to the paint applicator during coating operations, because currently it has been estimated that the overall paint transfer efficiency in the automotive industry is between 50% and 60%. Hence, this review assesses current automotive spray coating technologies with respect to their transfer efficiencies and discusses the fundamental and operational parameters that influence it. A comprehensive characterization of paint spray applicators (air sprayers, high-volume low-pressure sprayers, airless sprayers, air-assisted airless sprayers, rotary bell atomizers, electrostatic sprayers, and effervescent atomizers) is included. Some problems associated with evaluating and improving their paint transfer efficiencies are discussed. Also, the potential of and the technology needs for developing these applicators are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]