Case study – Development of predictive methods and decision support tool of powders industrial behavior

RHEONIS hereby provides its expertise related to powders physics, industrial processes and phenomena and instrumental techniques.

In this large-spectrum study (almost 90 powders), the following tasks have been performed:

1. Process analysis, information gathering regarding issues, recommendations for architecture of study
2. Demonstration of the potential of physics behavior powder rheometry techniques
3. Systematic study of dry and wet behavior for various parameters of phenomenological interest
4. Ad hoc system development for moisture sorption and systematic study of hygrometry effects related powders
5. Complementary measurement of standard parameters (granulometry, SEM, tapped-density, BET, angle of repose, floatability)
6. Statistical analysis and conclusion on critical parameters and combined quantities of interest
7. Cartography and decision-support tool development with excel macro

Our study confirmed that most of standard powders measurements are of almost null interest for discriminating or predicting industrial behavior and issues regarding handling, processing or storing.

At the contrary, instrumental protocols based on powders rheometry shear-cell and fluidization cell demonstrated the representativity of dynamical parameters with various effects. Hygrometry and thermal effects are strongly related with industrial issues, rendering moisture-sensitity or thermal-sensitivity measurement inevitable for issues anticipation.