Experimental Analysis of Segregation of Formulated Washing Powder Mixtures

Researchers: Maryam Asachi
Principal Investigator: Dr Ali Hassanpour
Co-Investigator(s): Prof. Mojtaba Ghadiri, Prof. Andrew Bayly
Sponsor: AMSCI
Status: Ongoing

Abstract

Segregation is the opposite of mixing, also described as reverse mixing. It is a problem for nearly all dry-powder-handling industries such as pharmaceutical, food, agriculture, and mining. It occurs when particles with different properties separate, and takes place because of different sizes, shapes and/or densities of the particles in a mixture. A perfect ordered situation for a powder mixture is achieved when each particle of a component is next to a particle of another component. The situation could easily be thought of as a chessboard, however it proved somewhat unachievable in practice. Therefore, attempts are usually made to reduce the tendency of segregation of powder mixtures by either manipulating key properties of powders and/or designing suitable processes while avoiding those promoting segregation.

One of the challenges for the UK supply chain is to create and manufacture advanced product to expand production. An example would be high quality detergent products with low cost, for which investigations and optimisation of the processing routes to the manufacture of detergent products with flexible and effective approaches are essential. A key step for this purpose is quality control to ensure product homogeneity of formulated powders and avoid batch variation of low level ingredients in the final product. This project is in collaboration with Procter and Gamble and the main aim is to investigate the segregation tendency of particulates products and ways to reduce it in the process. In particular, the objective of this PhD project is to measure and evaluate the segregation propensity of low content level ingredients in detergent powders using experimental techniques.