16th International Symposium on Industrial Crystallisation
Dresden, Germany, 11-14 September 2005
Messel bursar Helen Jones reports
 The ISIC conference was made up of five half-day sessions on topics in the area of industrial crystallisation ranging from fundamentals to industrial problems. The meeting was organised by Professor Joachim Ulrich from the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany and was held at Dresden’s International Congress Centre.
The first session, on the Thermodynamic Prediction of Physical Properties, began with an interesting lecture by Professor Gerard Coquerel from the University of Rouen, France. He described how phase diagrams may be drawn to show the effects of the presence of solid solutions when determining the relative stability of polymorphs. This was followed by talks about crystallisation in the presence of strong acids, the successful use of crystallisation as a purification method and the prediction of nucleation kinetics.
Over 100 posters were presented at the conference and the many poster sessions provided opportunities to meet people, discuss their work and find out more about other crystallisation research groups from around the world. The posters covered a broad range of topics from the design of new crystallisation vessels and processes to the latest computer modelling of solutions and crystallisation. I presented a poster entitled ‘Crystallisation of Organic Salts from Aqueous Solutions: Controlling Physical Form through Solution pH in the section Crystallisation Problems in the Pharmaceutical and Food Industry,’ and received useful feedback from other delegates.
The second session began with a presentation on Product Design and Characterisation by Professor Hounslow from the University of Sheffield . He illustrated the problems still to be solved in crystallisation of products, such as prediction of polymorphism and growth of crystals with specific size and morphology.
Next on the programme was a panel discussion led by Professor Peukert from the University of Erlangen and Axel Eble from Bayer Technology Services, ‘From Visions to Products in Industrial Crystallisation’. This focussed on the materials chosen for study by crystallisation researchers and whether more of a diversity of substances should be studied, or whether there is value in continuing to study sodium chloride and calcium carbonate which are well understood.
The Crystallisation Problems in the Pharmaceutical and Food Industry session, began with a presentation by Robert Docherty from Pfizer on the problems currently faced by the pharmaceutical industry. This was followed by talks on the growth mechanism of a pharmaceutical compound, additives for use in salt crystallisation, crystallisation of molecular salts and use of controlled crystallisation for the refining of lactose. This session was of particular interest to me as it focussed on crystallisation of organic compounds and salts.
It was followed by a session on Conceptual Process Design. Günter Hofmann from Messo-Chemietechnik gave a presentation of the types of processes and design of crystallisation vessels used in industry over the last 40 years. The conference dinner was combined with an enjoyable cruise on the River Elbe.
A second panel discussion was led by Professors Davey, Garside and Rousseau on the future of crystallisation and the ways in which it could be used to tackle the major problems facing the world. Professor Davey gave a presentation on the contributions of Professor Garside to crystallisation research, and congratulated him on his retirement. The final session discussed Control of Batch Crystallisers with a presentation by Professor Matsuoka from Tokyo University .
Attending the conference enabled me to meet both academic and industrial experts in crystallisation and to learn from them about novel techniques for designing crystallisation processes. I was also able to discuss my work with them and to find out more about crystallisation research activities around the world. The conference helped me to find out more about the career opportunities available to me and the theory and practical examples of crystallisation in industry will be useful for my work in the future.
I would like to thank the Society of Chemical Industry for the Messel Bursary, which allowed me to attend this conference.
Helen Jones
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