Modeling, Simulation, and Parameter Estimation of Antisolvent Crystallization of α-Lactose Monohydrate

Abstract

The current work investigates the study of semi-batch antisolvent crystallization of α-lactose monohydrate. The antisolvent crystallization has a number of advantages over conventional evaporative crystallization like lower energy consumption and better control over morphology and a crystalline phase. Experiments were performed for the different initial concentration of lactose, i.e., at 0.25, 0.30, and 0.37 kg/kg of solution. Average crystal size and residual lactose concentration were analyzed using image analysis and refractive index, respectively. The mathematical model of the semi-batch antisolvent crystallization process was developed and simulated using MATLAB to predict the experimental results. A comparison of the experimental with the simulated results has been reported. The crystallization kinetic parameters, i.e., nucleation and growth parameters (kg, g, kb, and b) were estimated using fminsearch subroutine by minimizing the errors between model predicted and the experimental values.