MultidimensionalPopulation Balance Model Development and Validation of a ReactiveDetergent Granulation Process.

Reactivegranulation is a complex process which brings about a physical andchemical change in the raw materials. It is extensively used for theproduction of detergents through the “dry neutralization”reaction. In this paper, the dynamics of the reactive granulationprocess is captured using a coupled multidimensional population balancemodel (PBM) for the size enlargement and a diffusion-reaction (DR)equation for the kinetics of the reaction. This framework can capturethe experimental observations that have also been reported in Schöngutet al. (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.2011, 50, 11576). There are a few empirical parameters involvedin the modeling framework for which a dynamic sensitivity analysiswas employed to shortlist the parametric quantities that have thelargest influence on the critical quality attributes. The model iscalibrated against experimental results via the Nelder–Meadsimplex algorithm for estimating the empirical parameters, and themodel predictions were compared with experimental results. Both theparameter estimation and prediction results showed good agreementwith the experimental results. The development in terms of a comprehensivemathematical model and the results as presented in this paper suggestthe ability of this approach to make suitable model predictions whichcan significantly reduce the number of experimental trials requiredfor process optimization and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]