Online monitoring of particle mass flow rate in bottom spray fluid bed coating--development and application

The primary purpose of this study is to develop a visiometric process analyzer for online monitoring of particle mass flow rate in the bottom spray fluid bed coating process. The secondary purpose is to investigate the influences of partition gap and air accelerator insert size on particle mass flow rate using the developed visiometric process analyzer. Particle movement in the region between the product chamber and partition column was captured using a high speed camera. Mean particle velocity and number of particles in the images were determined by particle image velocimetry and morphological image processing method respectively. Mass flow rate was calculated using particle velocity, number of particles in the images, particle density and size information. Particle velocity and number findings were validated using image tracking and manual particle counting techniques respectively. Validation experiments showed that the proposed method was accurate. Partition gap was found to influence particle mass flow rate by limiting the rate of solids flux into the partition column; the air accelerator insert was found to influence particle mass flow rate by a Venturi effect. Partition gap and air accelerator insert diameter needed to be adjusted accordingly in relation to the other variability sources and diameter of coating cores respectively. The potential, challenges and possible solutions of the proposed visiometric process analyzer were further discussed.