Granulation in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Process Design, Control and Scale-Up.

Granulation, a method of particle size enlargement, is an essential processing step in many industries, including pharmaceuticals, food, minerals, and detergents. In particular, granulation is used as a method to bind drug and carrier particles together prior to making tablets in the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the importance of this process in manufacturing, the underlying mechanisms of granulation are poorly understood, and design and scale up of granulation equipment requires extensive amounts of both time and funds. Additionally, small changes in material properties or process parameters can result in major changes in granule properties and drug distribution. These are significant concerns in the pharmaceutical industry, as the mechanical properties of granules have a substantial effect on tablet strength and dissolution rates, and uniform granule drug distribution is essential to achieving consistent drug loading in tablets.
Several opportunities are available to join this growing research group and be a part of cutting edge research in pharmaceutical manufacturing, for example:
Project 1: Continuous granulation in the pharmaceutical industry – the influence of process parameters in twin screw granulation on granule structure, dissolution and granule drug distribution.
Project 2: Development of regime separated granulation for the production of high porosity granules
Project 3: Design of in-line systems to measure granule properties and in-granulator stresses
Other project ideas in the area of granulation and tableting are invited. Opportunities for attendance at international conferences will be available, and there may be prospects to visit other institutions both internationally and nationally. The student will also conduct a training needs analysis at the beginning of their PhD to identify further skills as part of the doctoral development plan.