Nano Spray Dryer - Experience Submicron Spray Drying

BÜCHI’s latest instrument generation – the Nano Spray Dryer B-90 – revolutionises spray drying with an innovative technology for particle creation down to the submicron and even nanometer range from minimal sample quantities at highest yield. Spray drying becomes more and more important in drug development, pharmaceutical formulation and particle design as a gentle, easy to control, continuous and scalable drying process to convert liquid formulations directly into dry powders. The Nano Spray Dryer B-90 is especially designed for the early stages of product development. The modular glass assembly enables a visible spray process and a quick and gentle drying of various applications in small scale, ideal for feasibility studies in R&D laboratories to dry only a few millilitres of substance.

The Nano Spray Dryer B-90 meets the requirements of the pharmaceutical, biotech, medical, food ingredient, chemical and advanced material industry as well as in the nanotechnology. New application trends focus on effective formulation of complex pharmaceuticals and nanomaterial substances for novel drug delivery systems, like inhalable powder drugs. Typical applications are spray drying of aqueous or solvent based solutions, nanoemulsions, nanoparticle suspensions, structural transformations or nanoencapsulations.

The droplet generation is based on a piezoelectric driven actuator, vibrating a thin, perforated membrane in a small spray cap. The membrane features an array of micron-sized holes. The actuator is driven at ultrasonic frequency, causing the membrane to vibrate, ejecting every second millions of precisely sized droplets with very narrow droplet distribution. Different spray caps with 4.0, 5.5 and 7.0 micron hole sizes are available to achieve a precise droplet size between 8 to 21 microns.

A unique heater technology based on porous metal foam provides a laminar gas flow in the drying section. Optimal energy input guarantees fast heat-up times up to 120°C for very gentle drying of heatsensitive materials. The fine spray dried particles are separated by an electrostatic particle collector, a novel technology in laboratory scale. The electrostatic particle collector offers excellent particle recovery rates for samples in the milligram range. It enables an easy collection of small powder amounts of high value materials at high yields.

The integrated LCD display ensures easy process control. The PC software provides comprehensive data acquisition, storage and export capabilities. The transparency from spray head to particle collector due to the glass assembly and the very short set-up times enable an easy cleaning and even a sterilisation.

• Produce finest particles of 300 nm to 5 micron size with very narrow size distribution
• Dry samples in the milligram range
• Profit from minimal product loss due to uniquely high yields up to 90 %
• Save process time thanks to quick assembly, easy cleaning and fast product change