A complete experimental determination of the drying and degradation kinetics to get better knowledge of the mechanisms involved in transforming a droplet to the particle is the main aim of the whole project. Accomplishment of this task requires the application of a special equipment which would make it possible to take samples and to ensure residence time long enough. The main difference of our approach and the approach encountered in the literature in a systematicinvestigation of spray drying process for chemical and biological systems is involving in situ analysis of the properties of continuous and dispersed phases from atomization to collection of dry product.
A typical systematic analysis of a spray drying process contains the following steps (Nath and Satpathy, 1998): · atomizer performance studies,· parametric sensitivity of spray dryer studies,· powder property studies,· thermal inactivation studies,· post drying studies.
We proposed to make an additional step for deeper analysis of the spray drying process; to study spray and heat carrier properties during drying process (inside the dryer). Only this kind of analysis enables understanding of transferring mechanisms from droplet to particle connecting operational parameters of the process (temperature, humidity, moisture content) and current structure of spray (particle size distribution, particle velocities, etc.).