Open Technology Programme funding for Burak Eral

The NWO domain Applied and Engineering Sciences awarded funding this month to six projects in the Open Technology Programme. One of these is for Burak Eral, who lectures at the Department of Process & Energy and also works in the Intensified Reaction and Seperation Group (IRS). He manages the research project ‘LightX: Light induced seed generation for industrial crystallization’. Together with industrial partners (Lonza/CH, Akzo Nobel/NL and Janssen Pharmaceuticals/BE), Eral and his colleagues Herman Kramer, Antoine van der Heijden and Johan Padding has developed new industrial crystallization processes that use light. This process will make the production of medicines and vaccines possible which scientists previously thought could not be crystallized.

Summary

A continuous crystallization process with enhanced seed generation and nucleation control based on laser irradiation will be developed, which will significantly advance the industrial-scale synthesis of tailored crystalline materials. The process will enable the production of high-quality, ‘first time right’ crystals for which no additional particle modification or recrystallization steps will be required. To this end, we will elucidate the working mechanism of Non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation (NPLIN), a promising yet not completely understood physicochemical phenomenon, apply multiscale modelling to enable the application of this mechanistic knowledge at different scales and flow conditions and design and optimize a continuous seed generator system utilizing affordable light sources and optimized flow conditions.

Read more about Burak Eral’s research at www.erallab.com 
Information about all Nwo TTW grants can be found here.