Monitoring and end-point prediction of a small scale wet granulation process using acoustic emission.

A study to establish if acoustic emission could be used to monitor a small scale (120 g batch size) high shear granulation process and predict the process end-point, is reported. The robustness of the prediction model was further assessed by changing process variables. It is demonstrated that the technique is capable of repeatedly producing granules with consistent physical characteristics, such as particle size distribution and bulk density, despite changes in batch size and liquid dose rates. It is demonstrated that the model was affected by changes in impeller speed such that it was unable to identify a process end-point.