The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) has collaborated on a project to develop new research and testing capabilities to drive further scale-up and manufacture of next generation liquid formulated products.
 
Working alongside the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh, CPI has created an open-access facility to enhance SME and larger corporate partners’ product development. Formulated products typically comprise a large number of component ingredients, and while industry developments have provided the ability to create more optimized and controlled manufacturing processes, implementation remains challenging due to cost restraints.
 
CPI’s fully digitally-enabled test bed will address this issue, offering partners a time-saving, cost-effective research tool by de-risking innovation through rapid learning and analysis of new, complex liquid processes and technologies prior to capital investment. Users will be able to learn quickly and efficiently across scales, ultimately enabling manufacturing processes that deliver product attributes that are scalable, sustainable and economical. It will allow companies to understand and control the dynamics of scale-up and scale-down within batch formulation processes and serve as a test bed for novel sensors and process analytical tools.
 
Consisting of a series of scaled vessels, from one liter to 1,000 liters, with a sample flow loop to allow in-line and at-line monitoring of process parameters, the facility’s configuration is highly flexible and can be adjusted to specific project needs. Cutting-edge instrumentation produces data for understanding and predicting product behavior in-processing, with a control system for the rig and metrology capable of monitoring and controlling product quality attributes. This includes a data acquisition system for process, lab and spectral (PAT) data, and capability to implement process models for the real-time prediction of process parameters.
 
The equipment will be housed at the University of Birmingham between April and December this year. It will then be moved to CPI to complement their existing formulation capabilities at Sedgefield, and be operational from March 2020 onwards.
 
“We are delighted to have worked on this novel infrastructure, which will provide SME and larger corporate partners with greater scope to carry out development of next generation products,” said Graeme Cruickshank, director of formulation, CPI. “One of the real benefits of this facility is that it not only provides partners with the opportunity to better understand liquid formulations, it allows them to scale up and scale down their work. It is a real cost-effective, time-saving tool that will ensure the UK’s formulated products manufacturing sector remains at the vanguard of innovation.”