Monitoring of batch industrial crystallization with growth, nucleation, and agglomeration, part 1: Modeling with method of characteristics

This paper develops a new simulation model for crystal size distribution dynamics in industrial batch crystallization. The work is motivated by the necessity of accurate prediction models for online monitoring purposes. The proposed numerical scheme is able to handle growth, nucleation and agglomeration kinetics by means of the population balance equation and the method of characteristics. The former offers a detailed description of the solid phase evolution, while the latter provides an accurate and efficient numerical solution. In particular, the accuracy of the prediction of the agglomeration kinetics, which can not be ignored in industrial crystallization, has been assessed by comparing it with solutions in the literature. The efficiency of the solution has been tested on a simulation of a seeded flash cooling batch process. Since the proposed numerical scheme can accurately simulate the system behaviour more than hundred times faster than the batch duration, it is suitable for online applications such as process monitoring tools based on state estimators.