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ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
Published online 20 September 2007 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI:10.1002/apj.075

Research Article
Production of spherical and uniform-sized particles using a
laboratory ink-jet spray dryer
Kamlesh C. Patel and Xiao Dong Chen*
Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Victoria 3800, Australia

Received 22 November 2006; Revised 9 February 2007; Accepted 9 February 2007

ABSTRACT: There is a need in the area of particle technology and powder manufacturing to produce particles with
uniform characteristics for attaining stringent product quality. In this paper, a new concept of spray drying is proposed
to assess the possibility of adapting the same concept to industrial spray drying operations for producing spherical and
uniform-sized particles. This concept is based on ink-jet technology, where single streams of identical droplets can be
achieved using ink-jet devices. The ink-jet device, similar to nozzles found in office ink-jet printers, was introduced to
spray drying operations as an innovative atomizer because of its attractive ability to produce monodisperse droplets with
a precise control over droplet characteristics. In this paper, a new concept of single stream drying and some calculations
on feasibility of a newly built Ink-Jet Spray Dryer (IJSD) are discussed. The single stream drying technique could
provide a promising tool for producing uniform particles and also for testing and designing new products.  2007
Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEYWORDS: monodisperse droplets; uniform particles; ink-jet nozzle; spray dryer; drying kinetics; lactose
morphology

INTRODUCTION the drying of a large variety of feedstock, the achieve-

Spray drying has always been a preferred choice
operation where a free-flowing powder or agglomerates
are of interest, and also where heat-sensitive materials
(foodstuff, drugs and biomaterials) have to be dried
without significant loss of biological properties. Spray
drying is now considered to be a major representative
of industrial drying operations, which is evidenced if
one looks at the number of plants installed in the
last four decades, the high production capacities of
plants and the large variety of product development
(Masters, 2004). Spray drying is more often deemed
to be a most energy-intensive process when compared
with other industrial drying operations such as tunnel
drying and rotary drying (Charan and Prasad, 1993;
Baker and McKenzie, 2005). Spray drying technology
has been successfully employed for diverse commercial
applications for over a century, although there is much
research and development still being conducted for
various purposes.
In the last four decades, significant advances in the
spray drying technology and the dryer designs enabled
*Correspondence to: Xiao Dong Chen, Department of Chemi-
cal Engineering, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Victoria
3800, Australia. E-mail: dong.chen@eng.monash.edu.au
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ment of the highest production rate and the prerequi-
site product quality, the reduction in energy require-
ments, the minimization of the production and equip-
ment designing costs and the reduction of the difficulties
involved with scale-up and optimization (Kudra and
Mujumdar, 2002). A traditional configuration of a spray
dryer consists of a cylindrical drying chamber with a
conical bottom. Tall-form, short-form and flat-bottom
spray dryers have also been employed for designing
new products. Huang et al . (2003) proposed several
other geometries such as simple cone, hour-glass and
lantern-shaped chambers with a vertical orientation that
may replace the traditional configuration. Recently, hor-
izontal spray dryers have been proposed to handle heat-
sensitive materials and reduce the difficulties involved
with scale-up (Cakaloz et al ., 1997; Huang and Mujum-
dar, 2005).
A range of atomizers have also been proposed and
used to produce a finely distributed product with pre-
specified physical characteristics such as particle size,
shape and density. Pressure nozzle, rotary wheel/disc
and pneumatic atomizers have been widely used for
various industrial applications to produce a spray of
droplets with specific spray characteristics. Atomization
by means of supersonic and subsonic vibrations as
well as high-voltage electrical energy has been used
to assess the possibility of adopting these atomizers
416 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
for industrial applications. Some of these innovative
atomizers were employed to small-scale spray dryers
for improving the quality of the spray and also for
manufacturing powders with special properties. For
instance, an ultrasonic atomizer that operates with
ultrasonic energy was reported to be used in small-
capacity pharmaceutical spray drying plants to restrict
the particle size distribution to some extent (Bittner
and Kissel, 1999; Rodriguez et al ., 1999). Detailed
descriptions, working mechanisms and functionalities of
various atomizers can be easily obtained from Masters
(1991), Bayvel and Orzechowski (1993) and Liu (2000).
In spite of the extensive development in the spray
drying technology, control over particle characteristics
is somewhat restricted during drying. Current atomiz-
ers produce a spray of various patterns such as a thin
sheet of liquid or a hollow cone spray, which consist of
countless droplets of different size. High gas and feed
flow rates and different spray patterns lead to intricate
spray–air mixing and complex droplet trajectory, which
further result in droplet–droplet and droplet–wall col-
lisions, wall deposition, fouling, corrosion, unwanted
agglomerates, broad particle size distribution, and even-
tually non-uniform products. Each particle in the final
dried product may have a different shape, size, den-
sity, porosity, moisture content and also nutritional val-
ues. These potential problems ultimately lead to inferior
product quality and also the loss of products and money.
In recent times all materials produced in a pow-
der form continuously require new particle character-
istics to improve certain properties such as effective
density, compactibility, linkage, distribution and ori-
entability in order to form a unique matrix material.
Moreover, some final products in biological and phar-
maceutical industries require highly spherical particles
for their final applications. For instance, a spherical
shape is particularly suitable for colloidal drug delivery
of chemotherapeutic and tuberculosis drugs. Spherical
particles provide a useful and practical means of max-
imizing the efficacy of the drugs by offering adequate
concentrations of drugs directly to the target. Further-
more, spheres have a high potential to achieve the right
duration of drug release for a pre-defined period of the
time ranging from days to months (Gavini et al ., 2005).
In many biological, agricultural and drug testing studies
that involve understanding the structure and functional-
ity at the cell, molecular and gene levels through mea-
surement of their transcriptional activities of thousands
of samples at a time, the sensitivity and reproducibil-
ity of data/signals are directly related to the uniformity
of sample particles (Hardiman, 2003; Radulescu et al .,
2003).
In general, there has now been a trend in the mar-
ket to achieve stringent product quality. All particles in
the final dried product need to have uniform character-
istics, both physical and nutritional, in order to meet
the requirements in important applications. Industries
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering
continuously explore new techniques for manufacturing
particles of uniform characteristics and highly spheri-
cal shape, while minimizing several potential problems
such as fouling, corrosion, unwanted agglomeration and
high energy requirements. This is a real market-driven
challenge to both industrial and academic researchers.
In this research paper, an attempt to develop a proto-
type spray drying technique to seek the possibility of
producing uniform particles is presented. Emphasis in
this research work is given for manufacturing particles
of identical size and spherical shape.
One possible way to restrict the non-uniformity of
the product and to minimize some potential problems
involved in spray drying is to achieve a better control
over several spray characteristics such as drop size
distribution, droplet trajectory and droplet–droplet and
droplet–wall collisions. A new atomizing device has
therefore been introduced to spray drying operations
to control the spray characteristics and to fulfill the
requirement of a uniform spray and a defined control
over the droplet trajectory. In this paper, a novel spray
drying technique is described, which is drying of a
monodisperse stream of uniform-sized droplets with a
vertical drop trajectory, i.e. the single stream drying
(S2 D) approach. The proposed drying technique is a far
more attractive process compared with a conventional
process that involves drying of a ‘spray’ of varying
droplet sizes and random and complex trajectories. An
innovative idea of producing a monodisperse stream of
droplets for the drying purpose was extracted from ink-
jet technology, where it is possible to produce single
or multiple streams of uniform ink droplets with a
pre-determined trajectory using a device known as the
ink-jet nozzle. The deviation in droplet volume using
such ink-jet nozzles was reported to be less than ±1%
in most experimental studies in the literature (Cooley
et al ., 2001). Hence, the variation in droplet diameter
is expected to be even smaller. Furthermore, it may
be possible to avoid droplet–droplet and droplet–wall
collisions using the spray drying technique proposed
in this study. These features of ink-jet devices offer
great potential to adapt such devices to the spray
drying operation in order to obtain controlled droplet
characteristics.
Recently, ink-jet atomizers have been under exten-
sive research to make use of their ability to produce
monodisperse and uniform droplets. In fact, the concept
of generating monodisperse droplets using ink-jet tech-
nology has been used to produce polymer and ceramic
particles of a narrow size distribution (Blazdell and
Evans, 2000; Böhmer et al ., 2006). However, these par-
ticles were prepared in a solvent medium that requires
further washing and evaporation steps to achieve the
final product. These processing steps are time consum-
ing and could alter the physical, nutritional and surface
properties of particles. We are attempting for the first
time to prepare uniform and spherical food particles by
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD 417

combining ink-jet and spray drying technologies, now ink-jet devices were found unsuitable for handling heat-
known as ink-jet spray drying, which is a fast, reliable sensitive biomaterials because these devices involved
and solvent-free process. This paper outlines the work- local heating of the fluid up to 300 ◦ C (Lee, 2003);
ing mechanism of the ink-jet device, the construction of thus piezoelectric ink-jet devices are chosen in this
the laboratory ink-jet spray dryer (IJSD), the engineer- research work to dispense food materials, which are
ing requirements for reliable operation, some energy heat-sensitive and complex biological systems.
and design aspects of the IJSD and also advantages The ink-jet device (MJ-SF-80) used in this study
and drawbacks of the ink-jet spray drying technique. was supplied by MicroFab Technologies Inc. (USA).
Finally, recent laboratory results using an IJSD (orig- A schematic diagram of the ink-jet device is illustrated
inally developed at the University of Auckland, now in Fig. 1. The device was 34 mm long and 12 mm in
located at Monash University) to show the physical fea- diameter with an 80 µm orifice diameter. The ink-jet
tures of the air-dried lactose particles are reported in this device consists of an annular piezoelectric transducer
paper. bonded to a glass capillary. The glass capillary is con-
nected to the feed reservoir at one end, while another
end has an orifice for ejection of fluids. By applying
voltage to the piezoelectric transducer, the transducer
INK-JET ATOMIZER
produces a volumetric change in the fluid enclosed
within the glass capillary. This volumetric change cre-
Background
ates pressure waves, which propagate through the liquid
column towards the orifice. Sudden changes in cross-
Ink-jet devices have a short history. These devices have
section of the fluid column at the orifice lead to the
come under extensive study over the last two decades
formation of a droplet. Disintegration of a liquid jet
as they found a place in ink-jet printers, although the
issuing from the ink-jet device is schematically illus-
technology has been under development from last five
trated in Fig. 2. Dispensing of fluids can be of the
decades in ink-jet recorders and typewriter applications.
continuous type if the feed is pressurized and a con-
The development and the trends of ink-jet devices have
tinuous series of periodic pulses is applied to the piezo-
been reviewed in detail by Le (1998) and Lee (2003).
transducer; then Rayleigh instability occurs, resulting
Ink-jet technology is familiar to most people in the form
of desktop office printers, which consist of a number of
ink-jet nozzles to produce small ink droplets of different
Feed Reservoir End
colours. Ink-jet nozzles, positioned in a cartridge, gener-
ate single streams of small and uniform droplets, which
pass through charging electrodes. Printing is accom-
plished by means of deflection electrodes, which divert
streams of droplets and force them to impinge on the
paper or other substrates at the location programmed 34 mm
into the system. Ink-jet technology has today provided Face Seal
Fitting
a platform to the microfluidic technology for designing
microarrays, which are rapidly becoming indispensable
as research tools in the area of new materials synthesis
and analysis. Ink-jet devices are originally fabricated
for dispensing aqueous and solvent-based low-viscosity
fluids, although the technology has now been developed
Cables
to dispense a wide range of viscous materials such as
adhesives, waxes, polymer-based fluids, lubricants, liq-
PZT
uid metals and solder materials (Lee, 2003). material
Glass
Tube

Technology

Ink-jet devices are in general classified according to the

type of the energy used to disintegrate the liquid jet Orifice
at the orifice. Thermally and piezoelectrically actuated
12 mm
ink-jet devices dominate the market today compared to
devices operated with electrostatic and acoustic forces. Figure 1. A schematic diagram of a typical ink-jet
A detailed description of various types of ink-jet devices device. This figure is available in colour online at
can be obtained from Lee (2003). Thermally actuated www.apjChemEng.com.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
418 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
Nozzle
do Tip do
Fluid
Column
Monodisperse
Droplets
dd
dd
Continuous Mode Drop on Demand Mode
dd ≈ 2⋅do dd ≈ do
Figure 2. Disintegration of a liquid jet into individ-
ual droplets for continuous and drop-on-demand mode
operations.
in the break-up of the liquid jet into a single stream of
uniform-sized droplets. A single ink-jet device can pro-
duce from 2000 up to 100 000 droplets per second using
the continuous mode operation. If the periodic volt-
age pulse is applied to the piezo-transducer only when
a droplet is desired, this mode of generating droplets
is called a drop-on-demand mode where 250–12 000
droplets per second can be produced (Shah and Hayes,
2002). Droplets of a different size can be produced
using a fixed orifice nozzle by altering the mode of
droplet generation. The continuous mode operation is
preferred when higher throughput and bigger droplets
are required. Consumption of the electrical energy is
higher with the continuous mode of droplets genera-
tion, and the energy requirement becomes greater as
the droplet frequency goes higher.
Working mechanisms
The working principle of the ink-jet device is similar to
that of acoustic, ultrasonic and electrostatic atomizers.
Electromechanical energy is used to disturb the liquid
column within a thin capillary by supplying a periodic
pulse (waveform) to the piezoelectric transducer. The
disturbances produced by the voltage pulses cause
Rayleigh instability in the liquid jet at the orifice leading
to disintegration of the liquid jet into a stream of
individual droplets. If pulse characteristics (i.e. shape,
amplitude, width, rise time, fall time and frequency),
fluid properties and system pressures are constant over
the entire period of droplet generation, the ink-jet device
produces spherical droplets with negligible variation in
droplet diameter (i.e. ‘nearly uniform’ droplets). The
droplet diameter, when operating the ink-jet device
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering
using the continuous mode, can be approximated as
twice the liquid jet diameter at the orifice, while it is
approximately the same as the nozzle orifice diameter
with the drop-on-demand mode (Le, 1998; Cooley
et al ., 2001; Lee, 2003). If disintegration of the liquid
jet leads to the formation of large droplets having a size
bigger than the critical drop size, large droplets may
undergo further disruption leading to the formation of
smaller droplets, which are generally termed as satellite
droplets, and are undesirable in most applications.
Dynamics of liquid jet disintegration into individual
droplets have been subjected to theoretical and experi-
mental investigations for more than a century. The first
phenomenon of droplet formation from a jet of liquid
issuing from the orifice was noted by Savart in 1833
who provided the first quantitative data relevant to the
liquid jet break-up (Lefebvre, 1989). The first mathe-
matical description of liquid jet disintegration was given
by Lord Rayleigh in 1878 (Bayvel and Orzechowski,
1993). Lord Rayleigh compared the surface energy of
the disturbed liquid jet with that of the undisturbed
jet and analysed that surface tension forces along with
vibration forces significantly act to produce the insta-
bility in the liquid jet at the orifice. This behaviour of
jet disintegration is now normally referred as Rayleigh
instability.
Rayleigh’s mathematical theory is applicable only
in a range of jet velocities in which viscous forces
are negligible. A more universal theory for liquid
jet disintegration was developed by Weber (1931),
who further extended Rayleigh’s analysis to study
the effect of the viscous forces on the collapse of
the liquid jet. Weber (1931) observed that viscosity
forces also considerably affect the stability of the liquid
jet. Detailed mathematical investigations on the liquid
jet instability and the formation of droplets can be
obtained from Weber (1931), Marshall (1954), Goedde
and Yuen (1970), Lefebvre (1989) and Faidley and
Panton (1990). Production of droplets with negligible
variation in the droplet volume was observed by Hansell
in the 1950s, who supplied pressure waves using an
electromechanical actuator to disturb the liquid jet
(Cox et al ., 1999). Hansell’s technique of producing
uniform droplets has led researchers to manufacture
the current ink-jet devices. Simple models to evaluate
trajectory of droplets produced by the ink-jet device
placed horizontally in ink-jet printers are well presented
by Mohebi and Evans (2005).
INK-JET SPRAY DRYER (IJSD)
Experimental set-up and procedure
A lab-scale spray dryer that consists of ink-jet technol-
ogy is constructed and tested on the basis of a single
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD
Droplet
Generator
Video
Camera
Driver Oscilloscope
Transformer
Power
Variac
Power
Discharger
TV Computer
Monitor
Vacuum
Pump
Figure 3. An experimental set-up for the ink-jet spray drying technique.
stream drying (S2 D) approach. The IJSD was devel-
oped for a co-current, single-stage drying mode that is
favourable to ensure high bioactivity in food and phar-
maceutical materials. A cylindrical glass column with
no conical bottom was chosen as the drying chamber
because the cylindrical shape is more appropriate to
direct the air flow parallel to the monodisperse stream of
droplets in the drying chamber. The glass drying cham-
ber also allows tracking of the droplet trajectory and
monitoring the change in droplet size. The cylindrical
glass column with internal diameter of 95 mm, external
diameter of 100 mm and height of 500 mm was used
in this work.
A schematic diagram of the experimental set-up is
shown in Fig. 3. The ink-jet device was carefully placed
in the collar of the droplet generator assembly (PH-
04 print head, supplied by Microfab Technologies Inc.,
USA) to generate monodisperse droplets. The mid-
dle part of the droplet generator assembly, which is
schematically illustrated in Fig. 4, is the feed reser-
voir that also contains a filter for removal of suspended
impurities. A pneumatic connector was attached to the
top of the feed reservoir in order to purge the glass
capillary of the ink-jet device and also to adjust the
liquid meniscus at the orifice. For controlling the feed
temperature in the feed reservoir and the collar, heating
elements and thermocouples were installed. The heat-
ing element located near the feed reservoir consumed
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
419
Syringe
Manometer
Air Heater
LED
Power
Variac
Digital Flow
Meter
Filter Temperature
House Controller
Silica Gel
Bed
On-off
Valve
Air
200 W power, while the one in the collar consumed
100 W. The positive/negative back pressure to the feed
was controlled through a simple syringe–manometer
system. The droplet generator assembly was placed at
the centre of the air distribution plate in such a way
that the orifice of the device and the centre of the air
distribution plate match with the central vertical axis of
the cylindrical glass column. The air distribution plate
that disperses hot air around the centre axis, shown in
Fig. 5, was positioned on top of the cylindrical glass
column. Four silica-gel beds were placed in series to
dehumidify atmospheric air in order to have dry air
for accomplishing drying. The temperature of the air
stream was adjusted using an electric heater (made in
the laboratory) and a power variac supplied by TSL,
New Zealand.
A series of unipolar pulses were supplied to the piezo-
transducer of the ink-jet device using a waveform gen-
erator (made in the laboratory), which can further be
used to adjust pulse characteristics such as amplitude,
width, frequency, rise/fall times and shape. The charac-
teristics and the shape of the voltage pulse used in this
study are illustrated in Fig. 6. Pulse characteristics were
recorded using a digital oscilloscope (Agilent Technolo-
gies, Australia, DSO3062A, 2 channel, 60 MHz), which
was connected to the computer. Monodisperse droplets
were back-illuminated by a light emitting diode (LED)
in synchronization with the pulse frequency. Liquid
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
420 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering

Pneumatic 110V max

100
Connector
tdwell
50

0V
Retaining
Ring trise = 1 to 10 µs
50
tfall = 1 to 20 µs
Fluid
trise tfall tdwell = 1 to 100 µs
Grounding Reservoir 100
Screw Cartridge

Figure 6. A continuous series of pulses used for the droplet

Reservoir generation.
Mount
K-type thermocouples. Temperatures were continuously
Heater recorded using a TC-08 USB Pico data logger. For-
Connections Thermocouple mation of droplets was observed using a CCD camera
Connector (Sentech, USA, STC-400), the Optem zoom and focal
lenses and a television set. To investigate the morphol-
ogy of the dried particles, they were caught using studs
(also known as mounts) with double-sided, sticky con-
Device Electrical ductive tape on them.
Connector

Engineering considerations
Collar
The success of ink-jet spray drying significantly relies
on the consistent performance of the ink-jet device and
the behaviour of the monodisperse stream of droplets
in the drying chamber. Generation of monodisperse
Thermocouple
Connector droplets is not as simple as taking feed from the reser-
Device
voir and pressurizing it through the nozzle orifice.
Unfavourable conditions may result in a misdirected or
Figure 4. The droplet generator assembly.
intermittent jet, more than two jets, satellite drop for-
mation, blockage of the nozzle, generation of random-
sized drops or leakage of fluid without drop formation.
For the consistent and reliable operation, some specific
Ink-jet Drop conditions are required during ejection and drying of
Device Generator monodisperse droplets. Some key engineering require-
Collar
ments are listed below:
Hot Air
Fluid properties
Viscosity of the fluid should be between 0.5 and 40 cP
Nozzle Air
Distribution
and surface tension should be within 20 to 70 dyne/cm.
Tip
Plate Furthermore, the fluid should not have suspended solid
particles with a diameter greater than 5% of the orifice
Glass Drying
Hot Air Hot Air
Chamber diameter of the atomizer. Therefore, an appropriate
filtration system should be employed to the operation
before supplying the fluid to the ink-jet atomizer. A
common ink-jet device can work with fluid temperatures
from 20 to 150 ◦ C; however, some devices, similar
Figure 5. A schematic diagram of ink-jet spray to the ink-jet device used in this study, permit fluid
drying. temperatures of up to 240 ◦ C.
Pressure level
feed and hot air temperatures were controlled using Correct positive or back pressure is required at the
Eurotherm’s temperature controllers and monitored by fluid inlet for ejection of a liquid jet at the orifice.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD
Small positive pressures can be provided by positioning
the feed reservoir a few centimeters above the ink-jet
atomizer. When handling a large feed quantity, positive
pressures up to 5 psig may be required and an air
compressor has to be employed.
Pulse characteristics
The stability of the monodisperse droplets and the uni-
formity of the drop size largely rely on the pulse ampli-
tude, frequency, shape, rise time, fall time and dwell
time. The unipolar pulse with short rise and fall times
is effective in disintegrating low-viscosity liquid jets.
Highly viscous fluids may require a bipolar pulse. Pulse
characteristics are usually optimized depending on the
feed properties, the feed rate, the orifice diameter, the
feed pressure level and the required droplet frequency.
A waveform generator along with an amplifier has to
be installed to generate a single stream of droplets.
Drying and design parameters
The stability of the monodisperse droplets is affected by
various drying, processing and design parameters, such
as location of the device in the drying chamber, position
of the device onto the air distribution plate, location
of the air-dispersing holes, air–droplets contacting
methods, air flow patterns in the chamber, air properties
and flow rates, geometry of the spray dryer and position
and geometry of the fluid-bed dryer (if any). Control
over the air flow and droplet trajectory can have a
decisive influence on the quality of the final product.
Co-current laminar airflow is ideal to achieve a vertical
droplet trajectory and a reliable operation. The ink-jet
device and the air distribution plate should be mounted
symmetrically to the drying chamber for the dispersion
of the monodisperse droplets.
IJSD DESIGNING
The designing of an IJSD is simpler than designing
other types of spray dryers because droplet trajectories
are pre-fixed for a single stream drying approach. Since
the droplet size distribution, the air entrainment effects
and the droplet collisions with other droplets and dryer
walls are negligible for single stream drying, modelling
and simulation for the drying of the monodisperse
droplets is not very complex. In the literature, spray
dryer designing has been described as an ‘art’ (Masters,
1991) and this is correct to a certain extent because the
designing procedures are largely up to the individual
designer, being more based on the practical experience
rather than on theoretical basis. The main reason for
this limitation is the inability to express precisely the
interaction of droplets with other droplets, drying gas
stream and semi-dried particles under ‘actual’ spray
drying conditions.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
421
In this section, an attempt is made to design a cylin-
drical IJSD for the case study of drying monodisperse
droplets with a uniform size. An important consider-
ation during dryer design is the selection of a suit-
able design criterion against which the adequacy of the
results can be tested. The criterion selected for design-
ing the IJSD was the achievement of desired moisture
content in dried particles before they leave the dryer.
This criterion has a practical advantage of providing
small mean residence times to particles, which may
offer other benefits such as smaller dryer heights, lower
energy requirements and higher retention of bioactiv-
ity. The assumptions introduced during modelling and
designing of the IJSD were the following:
• The ink-jet device produces monodisperse droplets
with the negligible size distribution;
• Each pulse generates a single droplet;
• Initial droplet velocity is the same as the jet velocity;
• Air entrainment effects were negligible;
• Each droplet is considered as a binary system made
of water and solids;
• Droplets remain spherical during their entire transit
in the drying chamber;
• A perfect shrinkage model is applicable;
• Moisture concentration and temperature distributions
within a droplet are negligible during drying.
The generation and the behaviour of the monodis-
perse droplets using the continuous mode operation is
schematically shown in Fig. 7. The laminar liquid jet
issuing from a circular orifice is subjected to natural
disturbances, which are further amplified by surface
tension forces. The net effect is the break-up of the
liquid jet into individual droplets. The jet break-up can
be controlled by supplying pulses of a frequency f to
the piezo-transducer of the ink-jet device. If the liquid
jet is disturbed with a constant disturbance wavelength
(λ) at a regular time interval, then equally sized and
spaced monodisperse droplets can be produced with the
droplet frequency f . According to Rayleigh’s theory of
jet disintegration, the disturbance wavelength can be
approximated as λ = vj /f where vj is the jet velocity
(Frohn and Roth, 2000). Also, the spacing s between
two neighbouring droplets will be the same as the dis-
turbance wavelength (λ). The distance L0 in Fig. 7 is
the axial distance at which the jet oscillations can be
neglected. For the moderate pulse frequency (f ), the
initial jet velocity (vj ) was estimated using the volu-
metric flow rate of the feed and the cross-section area
of the orifice as:
2 dd 3
vj = f (1)
3 do 2
The orifice diameter is known from the ink-jet atom-
izer manual and the droplet diameter can be measured
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
422 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
Ink-Jet
Atomizer
do
Nozzle
Tip
L0 Fluid Jet
dj, vj
s
L depends primarily on the relative velocity of the droplet.
dd, vd, Td, X
Monodisperse
Droplets
Figure 7. Ink-jet spray drying of monodisperse
droplets.
during experiments. Generally, the initial droplet diam-
eter is approximated to be twice the liquid jet diameter
for the continuous mode of droplet generation (Lefeb-
vre, 1989; Le, 1998; Liu, 2000; Lee, 2003). For a homo-
geneous liquid, all droplets ejecting from the orifice
will have the same initial velocity, diameter, moisture
content, temperature and spacing between neighbour
droplets. These parameters will change during the flight
of droplets in the drying chamber owing to evapo-
ration of moisture from the droplet surface and also
to the deceleration of droplets. However, all droplets
traversing the cross-section of the drying chamber at
any distance L will have the same history at any time.
In that case, all dried particles at the exit will have the
same physical and nutritional properties because all dry-
ing and inactivation parameter profiles will be the same
for each droplet.
For single stream drying, each droplet should be
ejected from the nozzle tip with the velocity greatly
in excess of the air velocity in the drying chamber. The
droplet velocity may reduce rapidly as the droplet’s
kinetic energy begins to dissipate by the air friction
forces. Here, the air friction forces account for the drag
force and the buoyancy force, which act parallely along
the axis of the droplet movement but in the opposite
direction. When the gravitational force acting on the
droplet is counter-balanced by the air friction forces, the
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering
droplet acceleration will become zero and the droplet
will fall with a constant velocity, known as the terminal
settling velocity. The terminal settling velocity vts can
be obtained by using the following correlation (Patel,
2004):

4 (ρd − ρb )gdd 0.5
vts = (2)
3 CD ρb
The drag coefficient CD is a function of the droplet’s
Reynolds number (Masters, 1991; McCabe et al .,
2001). When the air friction forces exceed the droplet’s
kinetic energy, the droplet will start deviating from its
travel axis with an unpredictable trajectory. The kinetic
energy of the droplet is a function of the droplet size,
density and relative velocity. The initial droplet size and
density are generally determined before carrying out the
operation. In this case, the kinetic energy of the droplet
The air friction force is then directly proportional to the
drag coefficient CD . To have a vertical droplet trajec-
tory in the drying chamber, the drag coefficient should
be low and the relative velocity of the droplet must be
large enough to maintain the droplet’s kinetic energy
greater than the air friction forces until the desired mois-
ture content is achieved. However, there is a possibility
of scattering of the droplets at a high Reynolds number
due to wake effects, even though the gas-phase turbu-
lence is negligible. Brenn et al . (1997) reported that
scattering due to the wake effect is usually effective
after a downstream distance of 500–1000 jet diameters
for a vertical fall of monodisperse droplets. At high-
temperature conditions, droplets would be semi-dried
or fully dried at such distances, so the deviation of the
droplet flight from its axis and the droplet coalescences
may not be very important after a ‘safe’ distance from
the atomizer.
The moisture content and temperature history of the
droplet under evaporation conditions can be predicted
using an appropriate drying kinetics model. In this
work, the drying kinetics model based on the reaction
engineering approach (REA) was used to determine dry-
ing parameters. To avoid computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) simulations, one-dimensional steady-state condi-
tions were assumed to evaluate mass and heat transfers
to and from the droplet. The moisture content profile
was estimated for a single droplet of moisture content
X and temperature T using the following expression
(Chen and Lin, 2005; Lin and Chen, 2006; Lin and
Chen, 2007):


 
dX Ad · hm Ev
= ρv,sat · exp − − ρv,b (3)
dt ms R·T
where, ρv,b and ρv,sat represent bulk phase vapour
concentration and saturated vapour concentration at
the solid-gas interface, respectively. The parameter hm
is the mass-transfer coefficient and can be evaluated
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD 423

using an appropriate Ranz–Marshall correlation (Mas- Thermo-physical properties of the feed and the dry-
ters, 1991; Lin and Chen, 2002). The parameter Ev is ing gas were calculated using appropriate correlations
an apparent activation energy factor for drying which obtained from the literature. Mass, heat and momen-
represents the increasing difficulty of removing mois- tum transfer differential equations were simultaneously
ture from the droplet due to lowering moisture content solved using a first-order finite difference method to
effects. The parameter Ev was found to be a func- evaluate moisture, temperature and velocity profiles for
tion of the droplet’s free moisture content (X − Xb ) and the droplet and gas phases and also to estimate the aver-
was estimated for lactose solution using the following age droplet drying time and gas residence time data.
correlation (Lin and Chen, 2006):
Ev  
≈ 1.017 exp −1.678(X − Xb )1.018 (4) EXPERIMENTAL WORK
Ev,b
Here, Xb is equilibrium moisture content, which is Preliminary experiments were carried out to test devices,
a time-dependent parameter. The parameter Ev for assess the performance of the IJSD and check sev-
other dairy products can be obtained from Chen and eral particle characteristics at the Food and Bioproducts
Lin (2005) and Lin and Chen (2007). The temperature Processing Laboratory at the University of Auckland,
profile of the droplet was approximated by evaluating New Zealand. Gears were tested using lab-grade iso-
the heat balance between the droplet and the drying gas: propanol and then distilled water. In this study, recon-
stituted lactose solutions (made from distilled water and
dTd dX alpha-D-Lactose monohydrate powder) of different con-
md Cpd = hAd (Tb − Td ) + Hv ms (5)
dt dt centrations were used to conduct drying experiments.
where h is the convective heat-transfer coefficient and The solution was filtered using a filter paper (What-
can be estimated using a corresponding Ranz–Marshall man 5) before supplying to the feed reservoir. The feed
correlation (Masters, 1991; Lin and Chen, 2002). A reservoir was filled with 100 ml of reconstituted lactose
vertical component of the droplet velocity was calcu- solution. The concentration of the lactose solution used
lated using the momentum balance over a falling droplet in the first run was 5 wt% (dry basis).
(Patel, 2004): The first experimental run was conducted using the

   drop-on-demand mode jet disintegration for 12 h. The
dvd ρd − ρb 1.5CD ρb droplet frequency was set to be 500 droplets per second;
= g− (vb − vd ) 2
(6)
dt ρd dd ρd that is roughly 1 ml/h of the feed flow rate. This feed
flow rate will give a production capacity of 50 mg
For a spherical droplet under evaporating conditions, powder per hour. The inlet air temperature was kept
the drag coefficient CD was estimated using the follow- constant at 70 ◦ C and the outlet air temperature was
ing correlation (Abuaf and Stuab, 1986): recorded approximately as 35 ± 1 ◦ C. The inlet air flow

rate was adjusted at 12 l/min. The absolute humidity of
24 1 + 0.2 · Re 0.63
CD = (7) the inlet and outlet air streams was noted as 0.1 and
Re (1 + B )0.2 1.6 g water/kg dry air, respectively. Four studs with
double-sided sticky tape on them were placed at the exit
where B is the Spalding number and can be defined as of the drying chamber in order to catch the particles.
(Abuaf and Stuab, 1986): After collection of particles on the sticky tape, studs
Cpv (Tb − Td ) were immediately kept in a desiccator to avoid moisture
B= (8) absorption by the collected particles. Some studs were
Hv
stored in the desiccator for up to 48 h before analysis.
Gas humidity and temperature profiles were calcu- One stud was taken out for scanning electron micro-
lated by considering θ number of droplets traversing scopic (SEM) analysis 10 min after the operation had
between a small distance dl using following expres- started. Figure 8 shows air-dried lactose particles for
sions: this first sample, produced by a lab-scale IJSD. It can
dY ms θ dX be seen from the SEM photos that particles were amor-
= (9) phous, spherical and non-agglomerated. The deviation
dl vd G dt
in the particle diameter appears to be negligible for this
dTb dY sample. A median particle diameter for this first sample
GCpb + G(Hv + Cpv Tb )
dl dl appeared to be 13 µm, judged by using the ImageTool
 software when analysing several SEM photos. The other
θ dX
= ms {Cpb Tb + (Hv + Cpv Tb )Y } three studs were taken from the drying chamber at the
vd dt
 end of the experiment (i.e. after 12 h). Non-crystalline
spherical lactose particles with a narrow size distribu-
−hAd (Tb − Td ) (10)
tion (Fig. 9) were observed from the latter samples. A
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
424 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
Figure 8. SEM photos of air-dried lactose particles
for the first sample.
size distribution test in the particle size analyser could
not be conducted, as the quantity of the particles col-
lected was not large enough. When all samples were
analysed using the ImageTool software (version 3.0),
particles with a size ranging from 5 µm to 21 µm were
observed. For the traditional spray drying technology,
the particle size in the lactose powder usually varies
from 10 µm to 300 µm. The particle size distribution is
found to be very narrow using an ink-jet spray drying
technique (or a single stream drying technique), which
is an encouraging achievement. A few agglomerated
particles were also observed during the SEM analysis
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering
Figure 9. SEM photos of air-dried lactose particles
collected at the end of the experiment.
of the latter studs and are shown in the SEM photos in
Fig. 10.
The narrow size distribution, rather than a single size
band (in Fig. 9), and a small number of agglomerated
particles (in Fig. 10) with ink-jet spray drying may be
due to the gas turbulence in the drying chamber result-
ing in different droplet trajectories and droplet–droplet
collisions. The current gas distribution in the drying
chamber has yet not been optimized. Another possible
reason may be the change in the feed back pressure
due to the decreasing feed level in the reservoir. The
latter phenomenon may lead to the generation of the
droplets having different initial diameters over the oper-
ating time. These problems are under investigation and
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD
Figure 10. SEM photos of agglomerated lactose
particles.
expected to be minimized by optimizing the drying gas
distribution in the drying chamber and the feed back
pressure in the reservoir. Nevertheless, the deviation in
particle characteristics is likely to be small because each
particle is expected to follow the same drying path in
the chamber. In the near future, particle characteristics
such as moisture content, density, structure and resid-
ual activity of bioactive components will be studied in
order to check the performance of the ink-jet atomizer
and to understand the droplet drying process in depth.
(a)
Figure 11. Commercial multiple-nozzle ink-jet arrays. This figure is available in
colour online at www.apjChemEng.com.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
425
MULTIPLE NOZZLES IJSD
It was shown that highly spherical particles with negli-
gible size distribution were successfully produced using
a single-nozzle IJSD. However, the production capacity
of this type of spray dryer is very small compared to
existing commercial spray dryers. One important aspect
of any commercial operation is the throughput of the
operation. For instance, industrial spray drying oper-
ations are usually designed to produce powders from
a few hundred kilograms per hour up to 25 tons per
hour. Ink-jet devices are specially designed to dispense
droplets with a volume in the range from nano- to picol-
itres, and they can deliver up to 100 ml of feed per
hour with the continuous mode operation. Therefore, it
is necessary to enhance the feed handling or the pro-
duction capacity of the IJSD in order to take advantage
of this novel concept.
An array system with multiple ink-jet devices is
proposed to elevate the throughput of the IJSD. The
key idea is to place several hundred ink-jet devices in a
mechanical and hydraulic assembly to generate multiple
monodisperse streams with uniform droplets. Grouping
several ink-jet nozzles in the array system is common
in the print head of ink-jet printers. A typical integrated
array design of the ink-jet print head with 10 ink-jet
devices is shown in Fig. 11(a). The space between two
individual devices was only 2 mm and the total width of
the print head was 25 mm. Such integrated print heads
can be fabricated by sawing several glass channels into
a common piezoelectric block.
Another way of constructing the array system is to
place several devices with individual piezoelectric actu-
ators in a mechanical assembly, as shown in Fig. 11(b).
A major advantage of this design is that it is conve-
nient to replace a device or locate additional devices
according to the requirement. This type of array sys-
tem with several hundreds of ink-jet devices is readily
available in the market, and has been efficiently used
in many industrial and research applications such as
manufacturing of microelectromechanical systems and
(b)
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
426 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
microprinting of various electrical components (Cox
et al ., 1999; Lee, 2003).
In order to elevate the production capacity of the
IJSD, we propose to use multiple ink-jet devices, which
can be grouped in a single air distribution plate. A
schematic diagram of such an air distribution plate with
three ink-jet devices is presented in Fig. 12. Similarly,
several hundred ink-jet devices can be mounted in a
circular perforated plate, placing one device in each
circular air-dispersing hole. Many arrangements are
possible using a circular or a square perforated plate
with different geometrical positions of ink-jet devices
such as triangular, square, pentagonal and hexagonal
patterns. A triangular arrangement using a circular
perforated plate is schematically illustrated in Fig. 13.
The liquid feed can be supplied to each nozzle from the
feed reservoir using individual tubing. The perforated
plate can be fixed to the ceiling of the air distribution
plate. The hot drying air should be dispersed in a
co-current fashion through air-dispensing holes. Thus,
a novel multiple nozzles array can be fabricated to
increase the productivity of ink-jet spray drying.
Fabrication of multiple-nozzle arrays requires great
care in order to generate multiple streams of monodis-
perse droplets. It is important to locate all devices paral-
lel to each other and symmetrical to the drying chamber
axis in order to achieve parallel streams of droplets.
Appropriate supporting equipment should be installed
for holding all devices in such a way that the feed
delivery, the air dispersal and the piezoelectric action
of devices cannot change their position in a mechanical
assembly.
In this section, emphasis is given to the sizing of
the IJSD with the multiple-nozzle array system. The
thermal and evaporative efficiencies for a given feed
rate are also determined. Calculations were performed
for an array system shown in Fig. 13. The diameter of a
Feed
Reservoir
Feed
Tubing
Hot Air
Ink-Jet Ceiling
Atomising
Device Plate
Spray Perforated
Chamber Plate
Figure 12. A schematic diagram of a multiple-nozzle
ink-jet array. This figure is available in colour online at
www.apjChemEng.com.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering
Air-Dispersing Perforated
Hole Plate
dh
Ink-Jet dn
Nozzle
Ph
Figure 13. A triangular arrangement of multiple ink-jet
devices on a circular plate. This figure is available in colour
online at www.apjChemEng.com.
single air-dispersing hole (dh ) was estimated using the
gas-phase flow rate (Vb ), the gas velocity (vb ) and the
outer diameter of the ink-jet device (dn ):

 1/2
4 Vb
dh = · + dn 2
(11)
π vb
The hole pitch (Ph ) was approximated by estimating
the distance required between two adjacent streams so
that the flow of one stream of monodisperse droplets
cannot be affected by the adjacent streams. In addition,
air-dispersing holes at the periphery of the perforated
plate should be at a sufficient distance from the drying
chamber walls in order to avoid wall effects on the
falling droplets. In the present study, it was found
reasonable to judge the hole pitch, Ph , equals to 1.25 dh
for low air velocity conditions (less than 1 m/s) and for
droplets with a size greater than 100 µm in moving
gas environment. Then the diameter of the circular
perforated plate (dp ) having N number of air-dispensing
holes can be calculated using a correlation, similar to
that used for estimating a bundle diameter for a shell-
and-tube heat exchanger having a single tube-side pass
as:
1/2.142
N
dp = dh (12)
0.319
Industrial spray dryers are usually designed on the
basis of the heat requirement for the drying of the
dispersed droplets by providing adequate air residence
time in order to achieve the desired moisture content
at the exit of the dryer. In this work, calculations for
dimensioning the IJSD was performed on the basis
of the minimum dryer volume required to hold up
the liquid feed and the drying gas. For single-stage
spray drying, the average gas residence time is usually
higher than the average droplet drying time, and hence
the dryer design should be based on the average gas
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD
residence time data (Masters, 1991). The minimum
dryer volume was then determined using the drying gas
flow rate, the liquid feed flow rate and the air residence
time data (tb ). For the IJSD having N number of ink-jet
devices in the circular perforated plate, the following
model was developed to estimate the minimum dryer
diameter:

 
4 2 3 N · tb 1/2
dD = Vb + dd f (13)
π 3 h
The actual dryer cross-section should be bigger than
the diameter of the perforated plate by taking into
account the deviation from the ideal flow. The dryer
height may be estimated by multiplying the particle
velocity with the average droplet drying time if the
droplets are assumed to follow a vertical trajectory.
Additional length should be provided to the drying
column to ensure the pre-determined moisture content
at the exit and the cooling of the dried particles. In this
work, the average particle drying time and air residence
time data were obtained from modelling for drying
monodisperse droplets, and by incorporating the REA
as a drying kinetics model.
The performance of spray dryer is usually charac-
terized from their thermal and evaporative efficiencies.
These parameters require information about the inlet
and outlet temperatures of the drying gas as well as the
ambient temperature. For the case of negligible heat
losses, the thermal and evaporative efficiencies can be
expressed using the following mathematical expressions
(Keey, 1991; Masters, 1991):


Tb1 − Tb2
ηthermal = 100% (14)
Tb1 − Tb0


Tb1 − Tb2
ηevap = 100% (15)
Tb1 − Tb,sat
During process and plant optimization, a compromise
has to be made between the economy of the operation,
the product quality and the dryer efficiencies depending
on the essential outcome from the operation.
CALCULATIONS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, some design parameters and particle
characteristics are estimated for co-current air drying
of 30 wt% (dry basis) lactose solution using a multiple-
nozzle IJSD. Calculations were made for a feed han-
dling capacity of 100 kg/h using large droplets and high
gas temperature conditions, which are similar to indus-
trial spray drying conditions. The continuous mode of
droplet generation was considered for the ink-jet device
with a 100 µm orifice diameter. It was assumed for
simplicity that the flow of the monodisperse droplets
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
427
was not affected by adjacent streams as well as the
dryer walls. Mathematical modelling was performed for
uniform droplets of velocity, initial diameter, temper-
ature and frequency of 1.35 m/s, 200 µm, 40 ◦ C, and
10 000 drops per second, respectively. The hot air condi-
tions include dry- and wet-bulb temperatures of 220 and
43 ◦ C, respectively, and an initial velocity of 0.67 m/s.
Predictions were made using mathematical models pre-
sented in earlier sections. Simulation was performed
using Microsoft Excel computation programs. Predicted
droplet and drying gas characteristics along the axial
distance in the drying chamber are illustrated in Fig. 14.
It was observed that the formulated models provided
correct trends for all the characteristics of the droplet
and gas phases. Furthermore, the predicted particle char-
acteristics were found to be close to those of industrial
particles produced by current spray dryers.
Estimated dryer dimensions and efficiencies are listed
in Table 1. For the IJSD, the theoretical volumetric air
flow rate requirement to achieve 10% particle moisture
content was 38 times the liquid feed flow rate. The same
task requires an air-to-feed ratio up to 100 for current
industrial spray dryers (Keey, 1991). This is mainly
due to the fact that the contact between the air stream
and the monodisperse droplets in the IJSD is more
intimate compared to that in current spray dryers. The
concept of ink-jet spray drying (or single stream drying)
would lead to reduced energy costs owing to the lower
air flow rate requirements. Furthermore, the thermal
and evaporative efficiencies were found to be slightly
higher than those of other pilot-scale spray dryers of the
same capacity. Higher efficiencies would result in lower
production costs. However, the requirement of a large
number of ink-jet devices makes designing of the IJSD
more complex and expensive owing to the necessity of
having individual feed tubing and power cables for each
device. It may be possible that the overall equipment
costs are higher for the multiple-nozzle IJSD when
installing a few hundred devices into a single atomizing
unit compared to current spray dryers with the same
handling capacity. Therefore, a compromise needs to be
made for the maximum number of ink-jet devices to be
Table 1. Design parameters for a feed handling
capacity of 100 kg/h.
Parameter Value
Air-dispersing hole diameter 0.05 m
Perforated plate diameter 1.68 m
Dryer diameter 1.97 m
Dryer height 4.70 m
Number of ink-jet devices 600
Particle moisture content 0.025 kg/kg
Particle true density 1497 kg/m3
Particle size 120 µm
Thermal efficiency 66%
Evaporative efficiency 74%
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
428 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering

(a) (b) 2.5 0.03

250 100

Drop moisture content, kg/kg

2
200

Air humudity, kg/kg

DropTemperature, C
Air Temperature, C
75
0.02
1.5
150
50
100 1
Drop Moisture Content 0.01
Air Humidity
Air Temp. °C 25
50 0.5
Drop Temp. °C
0 0 0 0
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6
dryer height, m dryer height, m

(c) 1.5 (d) 2.0E-04 1600

Drop Velocity
Air Velocity m/s
1.5E-04 1200

density, kg/m3
1
velocity, m/s

diameter, m
1.0E-04 800

0.5
5.0E-05 400
Diameter
Density
0 0.0E+00 0
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6
dryer height, m dryer height, m

(e) 0.04 (f) 6

drying rate, kg/m 2*s

0.03
4
drying time, s

0.02

2
0.01

0 0
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6
dryer height, m dryer height, m

Figure 14. Predicted profiles for various time-dependent characteristics of droplets and hot air. This figure is
available in colour online at www.apjChemEng.com.

used in the atomizing unit in order to provide simplicity be performed at relatively low temperatures (because of
and the reduced atomization costs to the operation. the smallness of the droplets), which are favourable to
In general, the idea of ink-jet spray drying could be achieving high bioactivity in the final product. Further-
helpful to produce highly spherical particles of nar- more, ink-jet spray drying requires a small quantity of
row size distribution. Since the air-entrainment effects fluid to run the operation, and therefore this technique
and the droplet–droplet and droplet–wall collisions
could be useful for testing expensive drug, food and
are small with ink-jet spray drying, wall deposition,
corrosion and unwanted agglomeration may be mini- biological materials and for developing new products.
mized. Also, the IJSD requires a smaller space com- Another attractive aspect of ink-jet spray drying is that
pared with other spray dryers. An attractive feature of different particle characteristics can be obtained using
the IJSD is that this concept is highly suitable for the a single ink-jet device by changing different drying
drying of heat-sensitive materials because drying can parameters, feed properties and pulse characteristics.
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering PRODUCTION OF SPHERICAL AND UNIFORM-SIZED PARTICLES USING AN IJSD 429

This ability can be useful to make particles with dif- Council for offering a Discovery Grant (Project Ref. No.
ferent morphologies and surface characteristics using DP0773688) to carry out future works. We appreciate
the same spray dryer. technical staff of both the University of Auckland and
Using the single stream drying approach, it is possible Monash University for helping with some fabrication
to measure drying and droplet parameters at all cross- work.
sections of the dryer. Furthermore, the reproducibility
of particles produced by the IJSD is higher compared
to any other spray dryers. Therefore, the single stream SYMBOLS
drying technique may form a useful experimental tool
for studying the droplet drying process and the solid Ad surface area of single droplet or particle, m2
formation mechanism in more depth. B Spalding number (= Cpv (Tb − Td )/Hv )
Future work on this project includes the drying of CD drag coefficient
protein-based, fat-based and sugar-based food materials Cp specific heat, J/kg·K
and various pharmaceutical products, the development d diameter, m
of an efficient particle collection system, the fabrication Ev apparent activation energy, J/mol
of the atomizing unit with multiple ink-jet devices f droplet frequency
and the development of the multiple-nozzle IJSD that g gravitational acceleration constant (= 9.81 m/s2 )
permits the higher feed handling capacity. G mass flow rate of the drying gas, kg/s
h convective heat-transfer coefficient, w/m2 · K
hm external mass-transfer coefficient, m/s
CONCLUSIONS Hv latent heat of vapourization, J/kg
l distance traveled by droplet, dryer height, m
A new concept of spray drying, which is drying of a m mass, kg
monodisperse stream of uniform droplets, has been dis- N number of ink-jet devices
cussed and some configurations of the IJSD designed in Ph hole pitch, m
this study. Basic models to estimate drying and droplets Q heat, J/kg
parameters were also presented. The new concept was R universal gas constant (= 8.314 J/mole · K)
found to be attractive compared to drying of a spray Re Reynolds number (= dd vd ρb /µb )
of droplets having random trajectories and large drop s space between two neighbour droplets of a same
size distribution. The IJSD offers simplicity to the oper- stream, m
ation and gentle treatment to the droplets, which may T temperature, K
improve the product quality. Ultimately, the IJSD could t time, s
effectively form a new approach to developing drugs v velocity, m/s
and designing new products in the laboratory, which vts terminal settling velocity, m/s
would be faster, economical, use fewer resources and V volumetric flow rate, m3 /s
yield more predictive results than current techniques. X droplet moisture content (dry basis), kg water/kg
The IJSD may be suited for small-scale spray drying dry solids
operations in biological, pharmaceuticals and agricul- Y air humidity, kg water/kg dry air
tural industries where valuable materials are handled
and where micro- or nano-sized particles of uniform
characteristics are required at a low production rate. GREEK SYMBOLS
Broad experimental studies and improvement in the
design are under progress within the Biotechnology and ρ density, kg/m3
Food Engineering Group at Monash University, Aus- ρv vapour concentration, kg/m3
tralia. The single stream drying concept proposed in θ number of droplets
this paper could be a fascinating approach to manufac- η efficiency
ture uniform-sized spherical particles and eventually the λ disturbance wavelength, m
best quality powder of interest. µ viscosity, kg/m·s

Acknowledgements SUBSCRIPTS

The second author of this paper would like to thank both 0 ambient conditions
the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Monash 1 dryer inlet conditions
University (Australia) for providing PhD scholarships. 2 dryer outlet conditions
The authors are also grateful to the Australian Research b bulk drying gas phase
 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 415–430
DOI: 10.1002/apj
430 K. C. PATEL AND X. D. CHEN
d droplet or particle
D cylindrical dryer
h air-dispersing hole
j liquid jet or column
o orifice
p perforated plate
s solid
v vapour
.
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DOI: 10.1002/apj