(435f) Computational Approaches to Scale-up and Tech-Transfer in Agitated Filter Bed Drying

The agitated filter dryer (AFD) is a critical technology in the pharmaceutical industry for isolating potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) post crystallization. There the filtration and drying unit operations take place in a single contained vessel minimizing operator exposure. The central challenge in utilizing AFDs effectively is designing protocols to produce API powders with residual solvent content uniformity and targeted particle size distributions that affect the performance of drug product processes through flowability, blendability, compatibility, etc..

Scale-up/tech-transfer of AFDs is made difficult by the variety of different geometries available at the lab, pilot and plant scales. The differences in geometry and scale affect both the heat transfer and stresses experienced by API, and which in turn affects the physical properties of the resultant material, namely through agglomeration and attrition. Moreover, the isolation inherent to AFDs makes direct probing of plant and pilot scale vessels challenging.

In this work, we present several computational approaches to investigate the physics present in the spatially varying local environments within AFDs, such as the heat transfer, gas-liquid phase change, mixing, agglomeration and attrition. These investigations utilize a variety of computational tools such as discrete element method, computational fluid dynamics, and machine learning. We will present heuristics and metrics for designing and optimizing AFD protocol at a given scale and considerations for scale-up and tech-transfer.

Disclosures:

EM, KS and NN are AbbVie employees and may own AbbVie stock. MM is an employee of Tridiagonal Solutions. RB is an employee of Engineering Solutions and Scientific Software. SS is a Professor and VB is a PhD student at Iowa State University and have no additional conflicts to disclose. AbbVie has provided research funding to Tridiagonal Solutions and Iowa State University. AbbVie, Tridiagonal Solutions and Iowa State University contributed to the design; participated in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, and in writing, reviewing, and approval of the final abstract.