Teaching Agglomeration through Simulation in Undergraduate Education

Particle size enlargement by agglomeration is common in a variety of industries, particularly in pharmaceutical and agricultural processes. Therefore, it is frequently taught in particle technology courses. To follow the evolution of particle size with time, population balance equations (PBEs) are commonly used. The problem is that these PBEs are often intractable for undergraduate students due to the fact that these partial integral differential equations only have analytical solutions for a very limited number of cases, and are challenging to solve for other cases. To address this issue, a simulation model was developed for student use. The goal of the software is to allow students to perform simulations for size independent agglomeration kernels and size dependent agglomeration kernels and compare the results. This model can also be used for comparison with experimental results. This preliminary version of the software will be presented and discussed.