Tadeusz Gluba

A Model of agglomerate formation during bed wetting in the process of disc granulation: This paper presents a method for quantitative assessment of the mechanisms of nucleation and granules growth by layering in the process of bed wetting during periodic disc granulation. This study included two initial, consecutive stages of a process with defined time courses. The first phase was a time period, in which only formation of new nuclei took place, while in the second stage simultaneous nucleation and growth of granules as a result of sticking raw material grains to pre-existing nuclei occurred. Different kinds of binding liquid were used for bed wetting in each phase. In the first phase, an aqueous solution of dye was used, and pure distilled water in the second stage. The contribution of particular mechanisms to the formation of agglomerates at different time points within the second phase of the process was determined in this study. To do that the results of bed granulometric analysis, mass balance of size fractions and the analysis of contents of a marker (dye) delivered to the bed with the binding liquid during the first phase in agglomerates were used. To assess the concentration of the dye in different size fractions of the batch, spectrophotometric analysis was utilised. The study was performed using UV-VIS JASCO V-630 spectrophotometer equipped with an integrating sphere. The sieve analysis, spectrophotometric studies and mass balance were used to determine changes in the weight of the dye containing nuclei and of the nuclei containing no dye. The aforementioned analyses were also used to assess changes in the weight of formed granules and of raw material particles attached to nuclei during simultaneous nucleation and growth of granules.