(358b) Effect of Crystal Size on the Breakage of High Aspect Ratio Crystals in Stirred Slurries

A number of processes produce high aspect ratio crystals in stirred suspensions. Because breakage of these crystals can produce fine particles that can block filters in downstream operations, determining the quantity of fines is of industrial interest. Particle breakage in stirred suspensions depends on a variety of factors including the agitation rate, material properties, and the particle size and shape. In this work, high aspect ratio crystals are grown to produce sets of paracetamol crystals in different size ranges. These sets of crystals are then stirred and the resulting crystals analyzed to determine the effect of the crystal length on the rate of breakage and on the child particle distributions. This work presents breakage distribution functions based on the experimental results. Both the size and shape distributions of the crystals are reported. Although paracetamol is studied, the approach is applicable to other systems.