Advanced Powder Technology, Vol.7, No.1, 21-28, 1996
Powder coprecipitation by the RESS process
The RESS process (rapid expansion of supercritical solution) is becoming increasingly important in material research laboratories. Indeed, many works on RESS have known success based on the criterion of homogeneity, morphology and size of powders. Initially, workers became interested in using several couples of solvent and solute, e.g. organic materials, polymers, ceramics, etc. This process presents great potential in powder technology and coprecipitation of many solutes in the same experiment may have a lot of applications in the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, industry sometimes requires a mixture of different solutes when mechanical mixers do not present the perfect solution. In this paper we suggest a new utility of the RESS process, where we deposit a mixture of test solutes (caffeine and beta-carotene) using a modification of a previously used apparatus in which caffeine and beta-carotene are solubilized and expanded through a nozzle. A perfect mixture is obtained with regard to deposition, color, quantity and even the scale of the particles.
Keywords:CARBON-DIOXIDE;SOLUBILITY