Powder technology is my area and its quite fascinating. The problem is that powders are far more difficult to deal with than liquids, and they are so far poorly understood. Physicists are currently fascinated by the way that sandcastles behave, let alone complex powder mixtures where every problem causes a delay or extra cost to production. Luckily, engineers have been working in powder technology from a practical standpoint, until the theory catches up. Granulation is a process used to increase the size of powder particles.
Larger particles are easier to handle and use and usually desirable.
Granulation is widely used in the minerals processing, pharmaceutical, food and agricultural industries. I am looking at the very first step in granulation, nucleation, where the liquid is sprayed onto a moving powder bed. These two questions form the basis of my thesis. The aim is to develop a nucleation regime map, which describes the controlling nucleation mechanisms as a function of material properties and process parameters. More details and a summary of my thesis work so far are available.