News

Design and Process Considerations in Spray Freeze Drying

Bernhard Luy, Matthias Plitzko, Howard Stamato

Abstract

Dynamic spray freeze drying combines spray freezing and rotary freeze drying to generate homogeneous, free-flowing lyophilized beads as a bulk intermediate product. This allows for filling on demand, with choices in dose strength and combinations of multiple active materials. Thus, the supply chain becomes highly flexible. This feature of handling bulk intermediate can significantly reduce time to market.

Production efficiency is enabled by using higher concentrated liquids yet maintaining fast reconstitution. Further processing with established solid dosage form technologies is possible, for example film coating for light or oxygen protection in diagnostic applications. The technology is built and tested in lab, pilot and production scale including its use for the manufacture of parenteral products, which is done in a fully contained process line. Industrial uses of the technology are in the areas of pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and medical devices, and specialty chemicals applications.

Compactability and sinterability of alumina granules made by spray freeze granulation drying and spray drying

Naoki Kondo, Akihiro Shimamura, Mikinori Hotta, Junichi Tatami, Shinya Kawaguchi

Abstract

The compactability and sinterability of alumina granules prepared by spray freeze granulation drying (SFGD) and spray drying (SD) were compared. The strengths of the granules made by SFGD and SD, densities of the green bodies and sintered bodies, pore size distributions of the green bodies, internal structures and strengths of sintered bodies made from SFGD and SD granules were evaluated. The strength of SFGD granules was lower than that of SD granules. The lower granule strength of the SFGD granules was advantageous to form a uniform structure without inter-granular pores in the green body, resulted in higher density and strength of the sintered body.

Keywords

Granule, Spray dry, Spray freeze granulation dry, Compactability, Sinterability, Density, Pore

Spray-freeze-drying as emerging and substantial quality enhancement technique in food industry

Poornima Singh, Vinay Kumar Pandey, Rahul Singh, Aamir Hussain Dar

Abstract

Spray freeze drying is an emerging technology in the food industry with numerous applications. Its ability to preserve food quality, maintain nutritional value, and reduce bulk make it an attractive option to food manufacturers. Spray freeze drying can be used to reduce the water content of foods while preserving the shelf life and nutritional value. Spray freeze-drying of food products is a process that involves atomizing food into small droplets and then flash-freezing them. The frozen droplets are then placed in a vacuum chamber and heated, causing the liquid to evaporate and the solid particles to become a dry powder. Spray freeze drying has become a valuable tool for the food industry through its ability to process a wide range of food products. This review’s prime focus is understanding spray freeze-dried approaches and emphasizing their applicability in various products.

Keywords

Food products, Fruits & vegetables, Shelf life, Spray freeze drying

Development of an Inhalation Dry Powder Preparation Method without Heat-drying Process

Takaaki Ito

Abstract

Biopharmaceuticals, including therapeutic genes and proteins, are characterized by highly-targeted, specific action and flexible pharmacological design and have a rapidly growing market share; however, because of high molecular weight and low stability, injection is the most common delivery route of biopharmaceuticals. Thus, pharmaceutical innovations are required to provide alternative delivery routes for biopharmaceuticals. Pulmonary drug delivery via inhalation is a promising approach, particularly for targeting local diseases of the lung, because it can exert therapeutic effects in small doses and can noninvasively and directly deliver drugs to airway surfaces. However, biopharmaceutical inhalers must ensure that the biopharmaceuticals maintain their integrity as they are subjected to several types of physicochemical stress, such as hydrolysis, ultrasound, and heating, at various stages during the process from manufacturing to administration. In this symposium, I present a novel dry powder inhaler (DPI) preparation method without heat-drying, with the goal of developing biopharmaceutical DPIs. Spray-freeze-drying is a nonthermal drying technique that produces a powder with porous shapes; this powder has suitable inhalation characteristics for DPI. A model drug, plasmid DNA (pDNA), was stably prepared as a DPI using the spray-freeze-drying process. Under dry conditions, the powders maintained high inhalation characteristics and maintained pDNA integrity for 12 months. The powder induced pDNA expression in mouse lungs that exceeded at higher levels than the solution did. This novel preparation method is suitable for DPI preparation for various drugs and may help expand the clinical application of DPIs.

Keywords

dry powder inhalers; gene delivery; hyaluronic acid; spray-freeze-drying.

Effects of magnetic field-assisted liquid carbon dioxide spray freezing on the quality of honeydew melon

Qiyong Jiang, Min Zhang, Arun S. Mujumdar, Sunlong Gan

Abstract

The effectiveness of static magnetic fields with different intensities (5, 10, 15 mT) combined with liquid carbon dioxide spray freezing (LCSF) technique in improving the quality of frozen honeydew melon was investigated. The results showed that LCSF with magnetic fields above 10 mT significantly improved ice nucleation and quality of frozen melons compared to conventional −20 °C freezing, −80 °C freezing and LCSF method without magnetic field assistance (P < 0.05). 15 mT strength static magnetic field assistance suggested the best results, with a 15.0% reduction in total freezing time, 17.7% increase in average freezing rate, 26.6% reduction in drip loss, and better maintenance of sample quality compared to LCSF. These findings demonstrate that LCSF with static magnetic field assistance is promising in improving the quality of frozen foods.

Keywords

Magnetic field, Liquid carbon dioxide, Honeydew melon, Freezing

Novel Strain Engineering Combined with a Microscopic Pore Synergistic Modulated Strategy for Designing Lattice Tensile-Strained Porous V2C-MXene for High-Performance Overall Water Splitting

Yu Zhou, Yousen Wu, Dongxuan Guo, Jinlong Li, Yue Li, Xue Yang, Shanshan Fu, Guozhe Sui, Dong-Feng Chai

Abstract

Transition metal carbon/nitride (MXene) holds immense potential as an innovative electrocatalyst for enhancing the overall water splitting properties. Nevertheless, the re-stacking nature induced by van der Waals force remains a significant challenge. In this work, the lattice tensile-strained porous V2C-MXene (named as TS(24)-P(50)-V2C) is successfully constructed via the rapid spray freezing method and the following hydrothermal treatment. Besides, the influence of lattice strain degree and microscopic pores on the catalytic ability is reviewed and explored systematically. The lattice tensile strain within V2C-MXene could widen the interlayer spacing and accelerate the ion transfer. The microscopic pores could change the ion transmission path and shorten the migration distance. As a consequence, the obtained TS(24)-P(50)-V2C shows extraordinary hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction activity with the overpotential of 154 and 269 mV, respectively, at the current density of 10 mA/cm2, which is quite remarkable compared to the MXene-based electrocatalysts. Moreover, the overall water splitting device assembled using TS(24)-P(50)-V2C as both anode and cathode demonstrates a low cell voltage requirement of 1.57 V to obtain 10 mA/cm2. Overall, the implementation of this work could offer an exciting avenue to overcome the re-stacking issue of V2C-MXene, affording a high-efficiency electrocatalyst with superior catalytic activity and desirable reaction kinetics.

Keywords

lattice strain, microscopic pores, V2C-MXene, re-stack, overall water splitting

A review of chemical looping combustion technology: Fundamentals, and development of natural, industrial waste, and synthetic oxygen carriers

Sanaz Daneshmand-Jahromi, Mohammad Hashem Sedghkerdar, Nader Mahinpey

Abstract

This review aims to give a detailed knowledge of the selection and fabrication methods of oxygen carrier (OC) materials for the Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) reporting up to 2022. The CLC process is a well-known chemical technology for capturing CO2 emissions with the generation of energy. In this process, OCs are utilized as a medium for oxygen transportation between fuel and air reactors. The main challenge in scaling up the CLC process is the development of appropriate OCs with optimal properties, including high transport oxygen capacity, reactivity, and stability. This review compiles the fundamentals of the CLC process using gaseous fuel, the kinetics of the reduction and oxidation reactions, and extensive studies on the fabrication of OC materials. In addition to the natural ore and industrial waste OCs, this paper extensively discussed the synthesized OCs. The synthetic OCs are classified based on the preparation methods including mechanical mixing, sol–gel, co-precipitation, impregnation, freeze granulation, and spray-drying. For each study, the active phase, support material, operating condition, and key findings are reported. Finally, the different lab- and pilot-scales operating facilities are summarized.

Keywords

Chemical looping combustion, Carbon capture, Natural/industrial waste oxygen carriers, Synthetic oxygen carrier, Preparation methods, Pilot plants

Combination of α-lactalbumin and gum arabic for microencapsulation of L-menthol: The effects on flavor release during storage and rehydration

Siyi Peng, Jiajia Zhao, Yaru Wang, Fang Chen, Xiaosong Hu, Lingjun Ma, Junfu Ji

Abstract

L-menthol-containing food products generally show the flavor loss during storage due to their high volatility. The hydrophobicity of L-menthol also causes the inadequate flavor release during rehydration. In this study, the stability of L-menthol was enhanced by microencapsulation and the effect of different powder drying techniques was also investigated. The highest efficiency (76.58–78.66 %) and loading content (18.58–28.35 mg/g) of encapsulations were obtained by using a mass ratio of 2:1(α-LA: GA). Then they were dried by non-thermal spray freeze drying (SFD) technique compared to spray drying (SD) and freeze-drying (FD) process. The SFD particles were shown to be spherical and porous with the highest porosity (86.82 %). α-LA/GA based microparticles with spherical shapes were demonstrated to largely enhance flavor retention during high humidity storage. In addition, the porous structures of SFD powders could cause rapid rehydration in liquid models, and the release behaviors of loaded L-menthol followed the Fickian diffusion. Consequently, the SFD technique shows great potential to produce microparticles by regulating the release behaviors of L-menthol during storage and rehydration.

Keywords

Spray freeze drying, Protein-polysaccharide complex, Powder microparticle, Flavor retention, Release kinetics

Inhalable aerosol microparticles with low carrier dosage and high fine particle fraction prepared by spray-freeze-drying

Quan Xi, Jiaying Miao, Zhen Cao, Hao Wang

Abstract

Co-suspension drug-loading technology, namely Aerosphere™, can improve fine particle fraction (FPF) and delivered dose content uniformity (DDCU). However, because of its poor drug-loading efficacy, the phospholipid carrier dosage in Aerosphere™ is usually dozens of times greater than that of the drug, resulting in a high material cost and blockage of the actuator. In this study, spray-freeze-drying (SFD) technology was used to prepare inhalable distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC)-based microparticles for pressurized metered-dose inhalers (pMDI). Water-soluble, low-dose formoterol fumarate was used as an indicator to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of the inhalable microparticles. Water-insoluble, high-dose mometasone furoate was used to investigate the effects of drug morphology and drug-loading mode on the drug delivery efficiency of the microparticles. The results demonstrated that DSPC-based microparticles prepared using the co-SFD technology not only achieved higher FPF and more consistent delivered dose than those of drug crystal-only pMDI, but the amount of DSPC was also reduced to approximately 4% of that prepared using the co-suspension technology. This SFD technology may also be used to improve the drug delivery efficiency of other water-insoluble and high-dose drugs.

Keywords

Aerodynamic performance; Delivered dose content uniformity; Drug-loading method; Inhalable microparticles; Pressurized metered dose inhaler; Spray-freeze-drying.

Aquivion® PFSA-based spray-freeze dried composite materials with SiO2 and TiO2 as hybrid catalysts for the gas phase dehydration of ethanol to ethylene in mild conditions

Stefania Albonetti, Martina Battisti, Sara Andreaoli, Riccardo Bacile, Claudio Oldani, Simona Ortelli, Anna Luisa Costa, Giuseppe Fornasari

Abstract

The spray-freeze-drying approach was successfully applied for the preparation of Aquivion based composites with high surface area. The encapsulation of different oxides, such as TiO 2 and SiO 2 in the superacid matrix was easily obtained using this technique and compared with catalysts prepared by the impregnation conventional route. SFD approach led to the preparation of porous micro-granules characterised by a high homogeneity in the phase distribution. The prepared materials were active and selective for the gas phase dehydration of ethanol to ethylene in mild conditions. The increase of the accessibility and the stability of active sites improved the activity of the composites and allowed to reduce the amount of the superacid resin. Moreover, the type of encapsulated oxide, TiO 2 or SiO 2 , modified the improved performance of the catalysts , having TiO2 the higher efficiency for ethanol conversion and selectivity in ethylene at very low temperature.

Keywords

heterogeneous acid catalysts, perfluorosulfonic resins, ethanol dehydration, ethylene