Modeling and Simulation of Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions

Rapid expansion of supercritical solution (RESS) is a promising technique for microparticle production. The literature points out that the RESS technique can be applied to process a wide range of materials including ceramics, polymers, biopolymers, pharmaceutics, and organic compounds. In order to achieve an adequate understanding of the RESS process, it is necessary to conduct more comprehensive studies involving the hydrodynamic modeling of the fluid flow through the capillary, the phase behavior of a expanding mixture, and also with regard to the microparticle formation mechanism. In this context, this work is focused on the analysis of process hydrodynamic modeling and on phase equilibrium modeling (thermodynamic modeling of supersaturation), with a phase stability test coupled. The Gibbs tangent plane distance for the phase stability test was minimized using the simulated annealing algorithm. The results showed that the thermodynamic variables exert a remarkable effect simulated variables (temperature, velocity, density and degree of supersaturation) for the profile.