Principles of crystallization process

Abstract

Crystallization is an important mass transfer operation, having applications in pharmaceutical, chemical, food industries, etc. It is defined as the process of producing crystals from solution, melt, or vapor phase. The crystallization process is mainly used to purify and separate compounds. Further, it can also be used to perform particle engineering, which in turn has a great effect on the efficiency of downstream operations such as filtration, drying, etc. The driving force of any crystallization process can be commonly termed supersaturation. The supersaturation can be generated by several methods such as evaporation, chemical reaction, cooling, addition of antisolvent, etc. The key events in crystallization processes are nucleation, growth, agglomeration, and breakage. These processes can be mathematically modeled using the population balance equation for the discrete solid phase, and mass and heat balance equation for the continuous liquid phase. The mathematical model is helpful in performing control and optimization-related studies. © 2025 Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.