Effect of aspect ratio on the mixing performance in the kenics static mixer

Abstract

Continuous manufacturing has received increasing interest because of the advantages of intrinsic safety and enhanced mass transfer in the pharmaceutical industry. However, the difficulty for scale-up has limited the application of continuous manufacturing for a long time. Recently, the tubular flow reactor equipped with the Kenics static mixer appears to be a solution for the continuous process scale-up. Although many influence factors on the mixing performance in the Kenics static mixer have been investigated, little research has been carried out on the aspect ratio. In this study, we used the coefficient of variation as the mixing evaluation index to investigate the effect of the aspect ratio (0.2–2) on the Kenics static mixer’s mixing performance. The results indicate that a low aspect ratio helps obtain a shorter mixing time and mixer length. This study suggests that ad-justing the aspect ratio of the Kenics static mixer can be a new strategy for the scale-up of a continuous process in the pharmaceutical industry.