Yes / The present study demonstrates the application of decision tree algorithms to the co-crystallization process. Fifty four (54) batches of carbamazepine-salicylic acid co-crystals embedded in poly(ethylene oxide) were manufactured via hot melt extrusion and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, differnetial scanning calorimetry, and near-infrared spectroscopy. This dataset was then applied in WEKA, which is an open-sourced machine learning software to study the effect of processing temperature, screw speed, screw configuration, and poly(ethylene oxide) concentration on the percentage of co-crystal conversion. The decision trees obtained provided statistically meaningful and easy-to-interpret rules, demonstrating the potential to use the method to make rational decisions during the development of co-crystallization processes. / Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (ZMCS-2018-783) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC EP/J003360/1 and EP/L027011/1)

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:21:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 parte1.pdf: 2899615 bytes, checksum: 75e6cc1845e4dc8219f3bc05e1249db6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The motivation of this work was to obtain zinc oxide (ZnO), which is a semiconductor of large technological application, by a new chemical method, the Hydrothermal Method coupled to the use of a domestic microwave oven. Such method favors the obtainment of materials at lower temperature and short time period, besides favoring the formation of particles with controlled size and morphology, and also allowing a good control of the particle properties. The ZnO samples were synthesized at low temperature (100 °C) and at a short time period, using different reaction media: water, ethanol and water/ethanol (1:1); and alkalized with NaOH and NH4OH. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Field Emission Gun (FEG), Infrared Spectroscopy (IR), Raman Spectroscopy, UV-vis Spectroscopy and Photoluminescence techniques were carried out to characterize the material. All the samples obtained crystallized in a hexagonal structure of the wurtzite type whose unit cell volumes do not significantly vary with the time. Moreover, the samples alkalized with NH4OH were more organized, both in the short and in the long ranges, than the samples alkalized with NaOH. This was due to the formation of two different ions with opposite charges, − 24 ) (OH Zn and + 24 3 Zn(NH ) , that are attracted to each other during the process and then lead to the material organization. Several structures, such as spherical nanoparticles, nanoarrays, nanorods and flower-like clusters were obtained according to the reaction medium, alkali and synthesis time. The size of these structures increases with the increase of the synthesis time and varies from 20 to 570 nm, when they are synthesized in a lower time and from 500 nm to 1,5 μm in a higher synthesis time, showing that the particle sizes can be controlled easily. / A motivação deste trabalho foi a obtenção do Óxido de Zinco (ZnO), que é um semicondutor de grande emprego tecnológico, através de um novo método químico, o método hidrotermal acoplado a um forno de microondas doméstico. Tal método possibilita a obtenção de materiais em temperaturas baixas e em baixo tempo, alem de facilitar a formação de partículas com tamanho e morfologia controlados, e favorecer um bom controle de suas propriedades. As amostras de ZnO foram sintetizadas em baixa temperatura (100 °C) e em baixo tempo, utilizando diferentes meios reacionais: água, etanol e água/etanol (1:1); e alcalinizadas com NaOH e NH4OH. Foram realizadas as técnicas de difração de raios X (DRX), microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV), Field Emission Gun (FEG), espectroscopia de absorção na região do infravermelho (IV), Raman, UV-vis e Fotoluminescência (FL) para caracterizar o material. Todas as amostras obtidas se cristalizaram numa estrutura hexagonal do tipo Wurtzita cujo volume da célula unitária não varia muito com o tempo. Além disso, as amostras alcalinizadas com NH4OH são mais ordenadas tanto a curto quanto a longo alcance quando comparadas com as amostras alcalinizadas com NaOH, devido a formação de dois íons de cargas opostas, − 24 Zn(OH) e o + 24 3 Zn(NH ) , que se atraem durante o processo e facilitam a organização do material. Estruturas diferenciadas como nanopartículas esféricas, nanoplacas, nanobastões e clusters na forma de flores foram obtidas segundo o meio reacional, base e o tempo de síntese. Os tamanhos destas estruturas aumentam com o aumento do tempo de síntese, elas variam de 20 e 570 nm quando sintetizadas em menor tempo e de 500 nm a 1.5 μm em um tempo de síntese mais elevado, indicando que o tamanho das partículas pode ser facilmente controlado.

<p>Crystallization is a key solid-liquid separation and purification technique used in pharmaceutical industry. Some of the critical quality attributes (CQAs) of a product from crystallization process include crystal size distribution (CSD), purity, polymorphic form, morphology, etc. Different size and polymorphs of a drug substance may have different dissolution profiles and different bioavailability, which can have adverse effect on human health. Therefore, it is important to design and control crystallization process to meet product CQAs. In recent years, drug substances are becoming more complex, often being heat sensitive, which may limit the temperature that can be used in the crystallization step. Consequently, the traditional cooling only crystallization may not be well suited to recover the high value drug substances. For these systems, antisolvent crystallization is typically employed to improve the yield. On the other hand, the solvent composition can significantly impact the polymorphic outcome. Therefore, designing combined cooling and antisolvent crystallization (CCAC) processes to solve the challenges of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) crystallization in a highly regulated environment is a complex engineering problem. </p> <p>With rising energy costs and intense price competition from generic pharmaceutical companies, the pharmaceutical industry is looking for ways to reduce the cost of manufacturing via process intensification (PI). This thesis focuses on different PI techniques for CCAC of drug substances. Continuous or smart manufacturing is gaining popularity due to its potential to lower the cost of manufacturing while maintaining consistent quality. Continuous crystallization is an important link in the continuous manufacturing process. The first part of the thesis shows PI of a commercial drug substance, Atorvastatin calcium (ASC) for target polymorph development via continuous CCAC using an oscillatory baffled crystallizer (OBC). An existing batch CCAC process for ASC was compared with the continuous CCAC in OBC and it was found the continuous process 30-fold more productive compared to the batch process. An array of process analytical technology (PAT) tools was used in this work to assess key process parameters that affect the polymorphic outcome and CSD. The desired narrower CSD product was obtained in the OBC compared to that from a batch crystallizer.</p> <p>The next part of the thesis focused on model-based PI technique for efficient determination of crystallization kinetics of a polymorphic system in CCAC. A novel experimental design was proposed which significantly reduced the number of experiments required to determine crystallization kinetics in a CCAC process. The kinetic parameters were validated, and a validated polymorphic model was used to perform an in-silico design of experiment (DoE) to develop a design space that can be used to identify operating conditions to achieve a desired crystal size and polymorphic form. </p> <p>The final part of the thesis combines the experimental and model-based approach for designing a continuous CCAC process for ASC in a cascade of Coflore agitated cell reactor (ACR) and three-stage mixed suspension mixed product removal (MSMPR). A combined artificial neural network (ANN) and principal component analysis (PCA) method was used to calibrate an ultraviolet (UV) probe which was used to monitor ASC solute concentration in the cascade process. The crystallization kinetic parameters were estimated in ACR and MSMPR which was used to build a digital model of the cascade process. The digital model was then used to obtain a design space with different temperature profile in the three-stage MSMPR that yielded narrow CSD of ASC form I. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the benefits of applying PI in the CCAC of drug substances using a holistic approach including novel equipment, application of an array of PAT tools, and model-based digital design to achieve desired CQAs of the product.</p>

L'objectif principal de ce travail de recherche est de contrôler l'évolution de la distribution des tailles de cristaux (DTC) dans un procédé de cristallisation en batch. Nous avons été amenés à chercher une résolution numérique du bilan de population et à proposer un algorithme rapide et précis. La méthode numérique a été étendue au cas de la taille des cristaux multidimensionnels en utilisant un maillage mouvant. Nous avons étudié le problème de la commandabilité du système à partir de son modèle discrétisé et puis à partir du modèle continu. Nous avons conçu une loi de commande en boucle fermée pour atteindre la DTC désirée à partir de la condition initiale. Pour compenser l'incertitude des paramètres du modèle, nous avons ajouté un second contrôle par retour d'état afin d'assurer la poursuite de la DTC désirée en présence de l'incertitude des paramètres. Nous avons construit un observateur qui nous permet d'avoir en ligne l'estimation des variables d'états. Ces variables d'état estimées sont utilisées dans la synthèse de la loi du contrôle / The main objective of this research is to control the evolution of the Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) in a batch crystallization process. We are led to study a numerical resolution of the population balance and propose an algorithm for fast and accurate simulation. This method was extended to the case of the two-dimensional crystal by using a moving mesh. We studied the problem of controllability of the system from its discretized model and then from the continuous model. To compensate the uncertainty of the model parameters, we added the second state feedback control to ensure the tracking of the desired CSD in presence of parameter uncertainty. We constructed an observer who provides us with on-line estimation of state variables. These state variables estimated are used in the control law synthesis