What are the reasons for changes in results from the lab to mass production? Causes and countermeasures for the deterioration of distributed quality during scale-up.
澁谷工業 メカトロ統轄本部
Despite obtaining good dispersion results in the lab, the challenge of unstable quality upon mass production occurs in many settings. The main cause of this is that the dispersion conditions are not replicated due to differences in scale. In lab equipment, the smaller size leads to higher energy density, making shear and flow more uniform, while in mass production equipment, the larger scale often results in insufficient dispersion energy at the same rotational speed and processing time. Additionally, differences in equipment structure and flow patterns can cause variations in the shear history and residence time experienced by particles, leading to differences in the dispersion state. Furthermore, simple scale-up does not ensure that critical parameters such as flow rate, residence time, and shear intensity match, making it difficult to reproduce the same results as in the lab. To address these challenges, it is essential to focus on process design based on dispersion energy density and flow conditions rather than merely increasing equipment size. By designing the system so that particles pass through the processing area under consistent conditions, it is possible to achieve reproducible dispersion quality even when the scale changes, as seen in inline continuous processing.
