PhD Studentship - Process Industries: Net Zero CDT - Predictive Modelling of Powder Blending in Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

About the Project

Are you ready to accelerate the delivery of life-saving medicines and support global Quality by Design (QbD) in pharmaceutical manufacturing?

Continuous Direct Compression (CDC) is rapidly emerging as a preferred method for pharmaceutical tablet production. A central challenge is powder blending, where active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) must be uniformly mixed with excipients to ensure precise, consistent dosage and product quality. Blender performance is highly sensitive to process parameters (fill level, rotation speed, blade configuration) and powder properties (particle size, shape, and surface energy). Predicting blending performance from small-scale laboratory mixers remains a major barrier to rapid CDC adoption.

In this research, you will combine particle-scale simulation with targeted experiments to develop a predictive scaling methodology linking lab-scale mixing to full CDC performance across process conditions and material properties. This work will enable faster process development, reduced material usage, and provide a quantitative foundation for predictive QbD strategies in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

This project is part of the EPSRC CDT in Process Industries: Net Zero. The successful PhD student will be co-supervised by academics from the Process Intensification Group at Newcastle University. This project is supported by Astra Zeneca, who will co-supervise the project, provide access to high power computing facilities and supply relevant data where necessary.