The effect of relative humidity on electrostatic charge decay of drugs and excipient used in dry powder inhaler formulation

Electrostatic forces arising from charge accumulation on drug and excipient powders cause agglomeration and adhesion of particles to solid surfaces and problems during the manufacture and use of many pharmaceutical dosage forms, including dry powder inhalers (DPIs). The ability of materials to dissipate the acquired charge is therefore important and the aim of this work was to investigate the charge decay of salbutamol sulfate, ipratropium bromide monohydrate and alpha-lactose monohydrate. Differences in tri-phasic charge decay rates of the three materials in the order ipratropium bromide > lactose > salbutamol sulfate were demonstrated after corona charging and all materials showed an increased decay rate as the relative humidity was increased up to 86%. Preformulation knowledge of charge accumulation and decay in such materials will contribute to formulation, manufacture and performance of pharmaceutical dosage forms in general, and in particular DPIs.     

Influence of charge regulation in electrostatic interaction chromatography of proteins

Recently, the "slab model" was proposed to describe the interaction between a protein and the charged stationary phase surface in electrostatic interaction chromatography. The model is based on the solution of the linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation for a system consisting of two charged planar surfaces in contact with an electrolyte solution. In the model it is assumed that the charge densities of both the protein and the stationary phase are constant during the adsorption process. However, as the protein comes close to the oppositely charged stationary phase surface, the protein net charge will change due to the electrical field from the stationary phase. In this paper, the theory for charge regulation is applied to the original slab model, and simple algebraic equations are developed in order to include the effect of charge regulation on the capacity factor. A large body of retention data are reanalyzed with the new model, and it is found that there is good agreement between the chromatographically and titrimetrically obtained protein net charge. An interesting consequence of charge regulation is that it gives a contribution to the retention of proteins with zero net charge and even to proteins with the same sign of charge as the stationary phase.     

Control of electrostatic charge on particles by impact charging

The control of electrostatic charge on particles in gas–solids pipe flow has been studied experimentally and theoretically. Alumina particles of 3.3 μm in count median diameter were dispersed in airflow and pneumatically transported in the dilute phase. Five different materials were used for the transport pipes, and the relationships between the particle charge and the pipe length were obtained. The polarity and the amount of particle charge were found to depend on the pipe material and the length. In order to control the particle charge, a system combining two different pipe materials was proposed depending on the particle-charging characteristics. The charge controlled by this method was in good agreement with the theoretical calculation. Furthermore, it was found that the distribution of particle charge as well as the average can be controlled.     

Electrostatic charge distribution in the dielectric layer of alumina electrostatic chuck

Electrostatic charge and its distribution in the dielectric layer of TiO₂- and Cr₂O₃-added alumina electrostatic chucks has been studied. The electrostatic potential was evaluated at various applied voltages by an electrostatic potential meter and it demonstrated the existence of charges with opposite polarities. Direct SEM observation and toner development of the charged ceramic surface was carried out to clarify the charge distribution. The charge contrast was not uniform on the ceramic microstructure and the charge was distributed in the form of grains. Taking into consideration these results, the relationship between electrostatic charge distribution and ceramic microstructure is discussed.     

Process tomography system by electrostatic charge carried by particles

Two methods, the back-projection (BP) method and the least-squares (LS) method, were applied to the electrodynamic tomography system. Electrostatic charges were assumed to exist in the sensing zone, and their images were reconstructed using these methods. The reconstructed images were compared with the original ones. The BP method is accurate in detecting the position of the electrostatic charge and is capable of detecting the size of the object. The BP method could not distinguish two charges at separate points in the sensing zone. The LS method could differentiate two points of charge, but the reconstructed images were of poor quality due to the large pixel size. A reconstruction algorithm combining the two methods produced better results.     

Asymptotic scaling in turbulent pipe flow

The streamwise velocity component in turbulent pipe flow is assessed to determine whether it exhibits asymptotic behaviour that is indicative of high Reynolds numbers. The asymptotic behaviour of both the mean velocity (in the form of the log law) and that of the second moment of the streamwise component of velocity in the outer and overlap regions is consistent with the development of spectral regions which indicate inertial scaling. It is shown that an 'inertial sublayer' in physical space may be considered as a spatial analogue of the inertial subrange in the velocity spectrum and such behaviour only appears for Reynolds numbers R+>5 x 10(3), approximately, much higher than was generally thought.     

Nonlinear flow analysis in pipe networks

Pipe networks are computed in an analogous mannner to frameworks in structural mechanics loaded only by moments. The mesh method (force method) is applied. Due to the boundary layer effects in special pipe members, the flow problem is in general nonlinear. Therefore, the Newton-Raphson iteration procedure is used to solve the nonlinear system of equations. Using the computed flow rates in the TREE structure (determined by graph theory) as initial values, the iteration procedure converges rapidly to a user specified tolerance value. The loss coefficients of pressure for different pipe members (TUBE, VALVE, BOW, TEE, PUMP, KNEE, ±CONTR, ±DIFSR) need only be given in diagrams. These diagrams are used in digitalized form. In the back-substitution phase with known flow rates in all members, the pressure at the joints is computed. The main advantages of the analysis as outlined are that no initial values for the member flow rates need be known, the iteration procedure converges rapidly, and within each iteration step only small systems of linear equations need to be solved. Due to the fact that the loss coefficients of pressure need only be given in diagrams, arbitrary nonlinear networks can be analysed by the unchanged program system. A flow rate assumption may be specified in the input for a member of a mesh. The pressures at the joints are defined as unknowns (displacement method) in References 7, 8 and 10. The flow rates in the members are defined as unknowns (force method) in Reference 9. The nonlinear system of equations is always solved by the Newton-Raphson procedure. In Reference 10 a strategy is presented to take into account different pipe members, but in a different way from that outlined in this paper. The members BOW, TEE, KNEE, CONTR, DIFSR are not examined in Reference 10.     

Critical threshold in pipe flow transition

This study provides a numerical characterization of the basin of attraction of the laminar Hagen-Poiseuille flow by measuring the minimal amplitude of a perturbation required to trigger transition. For pressure-driven pipe flow, the analysis presented here covers autonomous and impulsive scenarios where either the flow is perturbed with an initial disturbance with a well-defined norm or perturbed by means of local impulsive forcing that mimics injections through the pipe wall. In both the cases, the exploration is carried out for a wide range of Reynolds numbers by means of a computational method that numerically resolves the transitional dynamics. For , the present work provides critical amplitudes that decay as Re(-3/2) and Re(-1) for the autonomous and impulsive scenarios, respectively. For Re=2875, accurate threshold amplitudes are found for constant mass-flux pipe by means of a shooting method that provides critical trajectories that never relaminarize or trigger transition. These transient states are used as initial guesses in a damped Newton-Krylov method formulated to find periodic travelling wave solutions that either travel downstream or exhibit a helicoidal advection.     

Investigation of granular surface roughness effect on electrostatic charge generation

Electrostatic charge generation is a multivariable and complex issue whose working mechanism has never been fully understood. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of granule surface roughness on electrostatic charge generation. Two kinds of granule material, Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polypropylene (PP) were used with the granule size of 4 mm diameter, 2 mm height and the shape was cylinder or semi-cylinder. The working surfaces were grounded and roughness ranged from 0.140 to 8.600 μm. It was found that uneven surfaces tended to give rise to voids between two solids, where air stored in the voids was able to accelerate discharging. With the same roughness, PVC tended to generate more electrostatic charge than PP by one order of magnitude. For both materials, electrostatic charge generation first increased with surface roughness and then decreased. The maximum electrostatic charge generated was found to occur when the effects of interaction, contact area and voids discharging were at equilibrium. With the combined effect of humidity, surface roughness and contact area, highest electrostatics generation occurred near the mid-roughness tested in this work. Humidity had more effect on electrostatic charge generation as the granule working surface had lower roughness.     

Numerical analysis of terminal charge selector designs for electrostatic accelerators

The performance of two terminal charge selector designs is analyzed by numerical integration of particle trajectories. It is shown that the attempt to offset the electrical quadrupole field by displacement of the two poles in the bending plane of each quadrupole results in large beam aberration and poor charge selection efficiency. A numerical analysis performed by offsetting the quadrupole field displacing the entire quadrupole off the beam axis yielded satisfactory charge resolution.     

Measurement of electrostatic dipoles and net charge on particles suspended in air

Explanations of electrostatic behaviour of individual particulates have always invoked net electrostatic charge and neglected any fixed dipoles arising from nonuniform distribution of charge on their surface. Here for the first time, techniques are described to measure both net charge of each particle and its dipole moment by sampling, photography, and movement analysis of particles suspended in air. In this study, spherical dielectric particles were subjected to a non-uniform electric field (around a probe) and their trajectory was followed with a multi-flash high-speed video camera. These first results support the existence of fixed or “permanent” dipoles, on tribocharged particles.     

Laminar vapor flow in a heat pipe

Laminar vapor flow in the evaporation, adiabatic, and condensation sections of a heat pipe is considered. The problem is solved by using a parametric method. The solution resulted in a graphoanalytical method of determining the vapor-pressure loss in all sections of the pipe.     

Effect of electrostatic charge of particles on hydrodynamics of gas-solid fluidized beds

The aim of this work was to investigate effect of electrostatic charge of particles on the fluidization hydrodynamics. Behavior of bubbles in beds of polyethylene particles was studied through analysis of pressure fluctuations in the frequency domain. Fluidized beds of uncharged, pre-charged and bed-charged particles were used in the experiments. Results revealed that in the bed of pre-charged particles, compared to uncharged experiments, particle-particle repulsive force increases the bed voidage and reduces equilibrium bubble size while the transition velocity to turbulent fluidization is decreased. In the case of bed-charged particles, at low gas velocities bubble fraction is greater compare to the other cases due to faster bubble coalescence in the presence of particle-wall attractive electrostatic force. Electrostatic charge of bulk increases by increasing the gas velocity. At high gas velocities, the repulsion force between highly charged particles overcomes the particle-wall effect on bubble formation and reduces the bubble size to less than in uncharged experiments. Accumulation of particles near the wall in the bed od bed-charged particles affects the hydrodynamics in two ways: first it accelerates bubble growth via bubble coalescence at low gas velocities, second it limits the bubble growth and reduces the transition velocity to turbulent regime to a value less than for pre-charged particles.     

Pseudospectral method for MHD pipe flow

The paper deals with MHD flow in pipes with arbitrary wall conductivity under the influence of a transverse magnetic field. We employ the pseudospectral collocation method for obtaining a numerical solution of the problem. The numerical results are compared with analytical ones in the case of pipe with insulating walls. We notice that the magnetic field is slowing the motion. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local charge transport in two-dimensional PbSe nanocrystal arrays studied by electrostatic force microscopy

Two-dimensional PbSe nanocrystal arrays on silicon nitride membranes were investigated using electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Changes in lattice and transport properties upon annealing in a vacuum were revealed. Local charge transport behavior was directly imaged by EFM and correlated to nanopatterns observed with TEM. Charge transport through nanochannels in complex two-dimensional nanocrystal networks was identified. Our results demonstrate the importance of measurements of local transport details complementary to the conventional current-voltage (I-V) measurements.     

Experimental and theoretical progress in pipe flow transition

There have been many investigations of the stability of Hagen-Poiseuille flow in the 125 years since Osborne Reynolds' famous experiments on the transition to turbulence in a pipe, and yet the pipe problem remains the focus of attention of much research. Here, we discuss recent results from experimental and numerical investigations obtained in this new century. Progress has been made on three fundamental issues: the threshold amplitude of disturbances required to trigger a transition to turbulence from the laminar state; the threshold Reynolds number flow below which a disturbance decays from turbulence to the laminar state, with quantitative agreement between experimental and numerical results; and understanding the relevance of recently discovered families of unstable travelling wave solutions to transitional and turbulent pipe flow.     

Absorption during slug flow in a vertical pipe

The coefficients of mass transfer accompanying absorption of carbon dioxide gas by distilled water in the slug flow regime are measured.Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 563–568, April, 1987.