How pores affect the drying of a pharmaceutical product

During microcollapse, pore walls in a frozen pharmaceutical product deform. The shape of these pathways affects how readily water vapour escapes during primary drying. Researchers at Purdue University and Politecnico di Torino developed a way to include those changes in a drying model.

The team fitted the model to published measurements at high and low product temperatures, then tested it at intermediate settings. It reproduced the measured product temperatures with similar accuracy, a step towards predicting how a particular formulation will behave as it dries.