![Powder Characterisation For Industrial Applications [Podcast]](https://www.processindustryinformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jamie-clayton.jpg "Episode 1. Powder Characterisation for Industrial Applications with Jamie Clayton, Freeman Technology 1")
Jamie Clayton, Operations Manager at Freeman Technology
In this episode Dave talks to Jamie Clayton, Operations Manager at powder characterisation specialists, Freeman Technology.
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Dave:
Welcome to this podcast for Process Industry Informer.
Today we're going to be speaking to someone from the Powder sector.
Hello, Jamie.
Jamie:
Hello, David.
Dave:
How are you doing today?
Jamie:
Yeah, I'm good, thanks. You okay?
Dave:
Yeah, I'm good, thanks. You okay?
Dave:
Yeah, not bad at all.
So you're from Freeman Technology?
Jamie:
That's right, yeah. So I'm the Operations Director of Freeman Technology.
Dave:
Super. So can you give us some background about what Freeman Technology is all about?
Jamie:
Sure, absolutely. So Freeman Technology specialises in solutions for powder characterisation, understanding powder flow and bulk powder behaviour. This has been an area of interest for around 20 years.
We're global leaders in powder characterisation, pioneered the first powderyometer and saw the world's only powderyometer and we work with a wide variety of industries, learning about their applications, learning about their processes and how our technology can help them gain a better understanding and ultimately help them optimise their applications.
Dave:
Okay, now I guess interested in talking about powder technology, I guess, inverted commas, from my understanding, that can be quite wide and a lot of businesses and I guess related technologies and sectors, they do have quite an interest in powder technology.
It's quite amazing when you start to think about the industry as a whole, how wide it is and how impactful and understanding of powder technology can be?
Jamie:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's various numbers that you can find in different publications but I think it's estimated that as much as 80% of products in the world exist as a powder, either in the final application or at some point during their process, at some point during manufacturing.
So yeah, it's a huge industry and there's a lot of demand for better understanding powders and obviously improving processes, improving product quality and that's where we come in.
Dave:
It also seems to me that if you are, I guess, looking to educate yourself about powder characteristics and how they're going to behave in maybe your process or your product, then somebody like Freeman is an ideal partner, because you have the experience.
Jamie:
Absolutely. I mean, part of the solution is the technology itself.
You've got to have the right technology to understand your powder and optimise your processes but really the main value comes from the knowledge, the expertise, what to do with that data.
Every industry is slightly different, physics is physics, powders behave as they do regardless of industry but there's different scales, different technologies, different applications. So yeah, it's about taking that data and knowing what to do with it and how to apply it to a given process in a given industry.
Dave:
Well, that's a good point, isn't it? So let's talk about that a little bit more perhaps.
If we talk about say an industry that would be, say one of your typical partners, I guess the obvious ones would be pharmaceuticals, we're not just them, it seems that your technology can be applied quite widely to various different sectors but if you have a sort of pick an industry which is pretty typical of the guys that you're helping out, which industry would that be?
Jamie:
You're right to mention it because pharmaceuticals definitely, historically, have been our biggest market.
I think for lots of reasons there really was a big need in the pharmaceutical industry to better understand powders, better optimise processes, not least because of threats from overseas, from generic companies but also the lack of blockbusters on the horizon and therefore the need to be more lean in terms of efficiency of manufacturing.
That's why we’ve seen 10, 15 years ago maybe a little more initiatives from the FDA such as process analytical technology and quality by design and these started to come into the Pharma industry and our technology really complemented those initiatives and allowed people to really get a better understanding of what contributed quality in their application and therefore implement the quality by design procedures.
So yeah, our technology lends itself very much to that and therefore we grew significantly in Pharma but yeah as you mentioned as well outside of pharmaceutical anybody that's handling powders which as I mentioned is a huge marketplace potentially they have an interest in what we do.
Dave:
Yes, it appears that if you, I guess, are a company who are handling these kinds of materials, I think it's interesting when maybe you guys get involved. Do you find that with your core customers?
Are they asking you for support at the beginning of their process?
Are they understanding that, yes, we need help because we don't really understand the characteristics of powders, we need some help with this.
Or do you guys tend to come along a little bit later in the development process?
What's the kind of time-free for your involvement?
Jamie:
I think we've reached the point where after doing this now for 20 years we're involved in all stages in lots of different applications but really first and foremost the first recognition that a better understanding of powder products is required is really in the R&D and formulation stages particularly when we talk about pharmaceuticals.
So historically a lot of our instruments went into those R&D departments, went into formulation departments where scientists were working with their materials trying to understand what for example made a better tablet, what for example made a tablet with the right hardness, the right dissolution or what just maybe went through their manufacturing processes better.
So originally, like I say, a lot of our instruments were acquired by people within R&D and formulation but of course once you've established that understanding that those numbers and those values that you've understood about your materials and what they mean to your process, you've then got applied them throughout the whole process.
If you've understood the materials that work, in say for example, a tableting application, then when the people that are working in the kind of process environment and the engineers are optimising their tableting operations, then they need that same data, that same information so we started to then see our technology adopted throughout the whole process chain right through to your quality control, quality assurance and then of course, for example, we might work with large chemical companies who are producing powder materials for their customers.
They need to have a good understanding of their materials but of course their customers then need to understand the materials that they're purchasing from these companies so we saw our technology like I say perhaps early adopters were R&D and formulation but it's now kind of propagated throughout various sectors within all industries.
Dave:
Oh that's interesting so in effect you guys could come into the picture even during the supply chain it's not just about formulations of powders for end products it actually doesn't understanding maybe the transportation of raw material and what that means when it's in powder form it's those kinds of conversations with I guess with the people that want to do this correctly cheaply or particularly safely so you guys can actually be part of the entire supply chain.
Jamie:
Absolutely I mean if you use that example they're transportation and if we stick to the pharmaceutical industry there's a huge number of raw materials coming from different suppliers going to any pharmaceutical production process.
Now if there's variation in those supplies there's going to be variations in the process and there's going to be variations within the final product so being able to control and manage and even screen the products that are coming into the process is a huge advantage and one of the real fundamental and basic applications of our technology is really just batch to batch variability, screening of raw materials.
So if you look at some of the most fundamental things going into pharmaceutical the vast majority a lot of all solid dosage forms are lactose or some kind of recipient and even though those lactose suppliers might be meeting the specifications that the Pharma companies have provided, it could be those specifications aren't quite tight enough particle size some density those kind of things are useful but maybe don't tell you anything you need to know about your powders, so having this additional screening tool means that you can exercise much tighter control over your raw materials and over your processes, so that's where we see like I say a real fundamental but really important application of our instrumentation.
Dave:
Yes I think you touched on it just a few minutes ago, I guess the next important stage for a lot of companies is to meet the regulatory regimes which they are part of clearly there are some particularly you've already mentioned chemicals and pharmaceutical but others as well you see an increase in and sort of people knocking on your door who say “well look we're really a very highly regulated industry there's going to be even more regulation coming down the pipeline can you help us?” is that clearly a growing part of your business?
Jamie:
Yeah absolutely. I think that as we see more and more our technology being used in processing and manufacturing environments away from maybe the formulation a little bit, then of course that regulatory control becomes even more important that are these products being manufactured in accordance with the relevant rules
So yeah, of course that season in extra demand for our technology and if you look at something like the pharmaceutical industry of course that's important because not having that control can of course be extremely dangerous for patients but even with other industries having that control and meeting those regulations.
For example you know if you're a large household goods supplier and you're selling boxes of detergent then it's absolutely imperative that you know if you're selling detergent by volume that you meet that volume, you can't under sell a product, you've got to meet the specifications on the front of the box.
So in order for these manufacturers to meet those targets but not oversell and not give away too much product then of course they've got to manufacture as efficiently and leanly as possible and again that's a pretty big application that we see for our technology and of course.
Dave:
I would imagine over the years you'd be able to influence I guess how powders in general are perceived. I think one question I think that's very common across the industry is why do we need this kind of information isn't a powder a powder?
Well, clearly it isn't I mean do you define that really you're also educating the marketplace as well not just providing solutions we're also talking to the businesses that you're supporting and really sort of explaining the misconceptions about how a powder behaves and how you use it and how it should be managed correctly, is that also what Freeman Technology is all about.
Jamie:
Yeah absolutely. I think that's always been our ethic and our approach to the industry really that what we really want to do is work with work our customers, work with our users, not just providing with a technology that generates a load of numbers, we want to help them understand their materials and help them optimise their processes but of course that requires us to have that understanding as well so we're always learning but we're also one of the things that we really focus on is education of the marketplace, because as you say, that there's lots of techniques out there, powders are powders, what's so difficult about them?
People have been characterising powders for decades using various different techniques why do they need our technology why do they need a different approach, so we're often talking to them about you know what the challenges are of handling powders, what the limitations are of existing techniques, why they don't provide the insights and the understanding that's necessary and how hopefully our technology can do that.
So yeah, we see very much as an educational process and it's really interesting, I've been with Freeman Technology for 12 years coming on 13 years and I've even seen that in my time there that we see a very different approach to how people are considering powders, there's a real increase in the understanding that existing techniques aren't necessarily sufficient and that's something that a new approach is required.
Dave:
And you see that as a sort of ongoing process, it seems that I guess, if you look at it from a not just a technology point of view and education point of view and I guess if you add in how new products are coming down the pipeline it's that holistic approach isn't it, it's not just let's look at one particular area of powder to behave, it has to be holistic, it has to be right across the board doesn't it?
It seems that if you can educate the end user about that you end up with a better product, a safer product and something that you know can be sold into the marketplace quite easily.
I mean how have you seen that over maybe your time, over the decade or so you've been with the company that the market has moved forward and it does need professional support to keep it moving forward and the I guess for the new products to come through.
Jamie:
I think so. I think they'll always be that changing in the marketplace, as you say, there's always different materials, different processes. As I say we’ve been focused on powder characterisation for 20 years, one of our areas that we really focus on, the biggest marketplace we talked about has been pharmaceutical, but there's always new things coming into even that industry, so you know in the last 5 or 6 years maybe we've seen a huge increase in the number of discussions that we have about continuous manufacturing, so despite the fact that that's been widely used in other industries, particularly food for example, it's very much a recent development in Pharma manufacturing and of course there's regulatory issues which make the implementation of it different.
But that's something that we talk more and more about now, so it means from our perspective that we have to better understand how our technology can help with continuous manufacturing processes and from the people working in those sectors, they've got to understand how it influences their powders and then how something like our technology can give them an insight into that process, but even away from that I mean that's just a variation within a single industry.
If I go back 10 years we weren't talking about additive manufacturing and 3D printing 10 years ago, but now it's one of our significant sectors that we work in, so again it's an area that we're having to learn about, we're always learning and likewise the people in that sector are learning how powder characterisation can influence their processes, but also just understanding what the challenges are, so a lot of the conversations that we may have had with somebody in a pharmaceutical application 10 years ago are still relevant to people in AM, but it's something that may not have had that exposure to.
So yeah it's interesting we see that real analogy between, for example, you can have a tablet press in a pharmaceutical application, it subjects the powder to very similar stress and strain regimes as a 3D printing machine but of course it's a different industry, different terminologies, different scales, different target qualities that need to be achieved but yeah it's about us learning about what we can do what we understand and how we comply that to new processes and even new industries.
Dave:
Yes you clearly understand the way manufacturers are moving on the whole sort of industry 4.0.
What I found particularly interesting, I was reading the other day how manufacturing you really mentioned becomes a numbers game but it also becomes a sensor game as well and I think for companies like you clearly that's a marketplace where it's only going to grow.
If we look say five years into the future we look at a manufacturing process which for powder based products clearly the whole idea of Internet of Things 5G and how that can give a manufacturing a whole new window into their processes that's going to have to also mean you must understand how the how the powder itself is being used within those new technologies as well, I mean that's clearly something that is going to continue to move forward but there'll always be the key issues which I'd like to sort of talk about a little bit, is just that it's when you have conversations with your customers do have the same issues come up again & again when they're talking about powder behaviour and could you outline a couple of the issues which industry not still wrestles with but still needs some help shall we say.
Jamie:
Yeah I think that we do see some common challenges come up and I touched on a few a moment ago, when we talk about things like pharmaceutical and tableting, but what I find that is most interesting and from our perspective but also challenging from the user's perspective, is that it's impossible to say well what makes a good powder for tableting and what do I need to measure and understand my tableting process that the challenge really of powders is the complexity of them, the variation of the way in which they're handled, the number of different operations they can be subjected to, and the number of different stress and strain conditions they can be subjected to.
So if we have somebody that's making tablets in the UK or in other company making tablets you know in Germany, maybe if they're using slightly different equipment, differences in temperature and humidity in their operating conditions, and different speeds of throughput, that kind of thing any variation in their processes could really change what they require from their powders.
The real challenge with powders is that there's no such thing as a good or bad powder, it doesn't necessarily mean “Oh we've got the most free flowing things so that's going to work best in our powder” it's about finding what's right for your application and again that's really the biggest challenge.
I think that's also part of the education process, there's no such thing as a good or bad powder, there's no single number that quantifies, a good or bad powder there's not even a single technique that necessarily tells you this is a good or bad powder, so people working with powders they do have that challenge, that it's a very complex science and they have to invest that time into understanding them and to optimise in their processes and as you alluded to yourself, the next step then is to take this from the lab to production, where one of the things that becomes really important is in line measurements.
So rather than having to stop probe procedures take samples and check them and then take them to the lab and return back to processing, what people want is real time in line information and again that's something we can offer now with new products that we have in our portfolio and we see applications such as wet granulation, so how do you define a wet granulation process?
How do you determine the end point of a wet granulation process? That's typically something that's a bit of an art form or potentially relies on things like particle size but ultimately that's just one property of a granule, so we see now that these kinds of common challenges across different industries but then different approaches and different solutions required to to address them.
Dave:
Okay so let's have a look at what so maybe on the other horizon.
I'm always interested to talk to companies like Freeman about where they see this kind of technology going, I mean I looked at how powders are evolving in the marketplace, food stuff it seems to be an interesting one particularly linked to health, a lot of these buy powder and put it into water and it's a electrolyte that kind of thing. Also people want to make their own cleaning materials at home and some of those liquids and some of those are also powders, aren't they?
You make your own at home and use those kinds of evolutions in how I guess the end customer is using powders, is that something that you see a lot more obvious, that's something where I guess a company that needs to manage its powder characteristics and behaviour, those are the kinds of marketplaces which they're business are going to be evolved to is that the kind of thing you see maybe on the horizon?
Jamie:
Absolutely, that's happening already. So we had a particular case recently where a food producer. There's obviously a large call now to look for more natural ingredients and we see that you know certain food producers they've had a recipe for a product that may have been on the market for several years, but there's a desire then to change the recipe for that product in order to substitute less desirable constituent ingredients for more natural ingredients, or to completely
remove certain ingredients.
Now much like in pharmaceutical changing the formulation or in food changing the recipe that can then have a big impact on the process, so if you're looking for substituting ingredients the producers of these products, they need to be confident that those substitute ingredients will display the exact same properties of those that they've previously been using.
If you make very minor changes to a recipe or a formulation it can have a big impact on the way those products behave and the way that the quality of the products that they produce, so yes substitute ingredients, more natural ingredients, is something that is really important in the food industry.
At the moment historically, one of the things that we've seen as well is fairly obvious, but things like R&D work in pharmaceutical and been undertaken in the US or Europe but manufacture maybe been done in China or India, Mexico so that that transfer of technology that transfer of that knowledge and knowing that the materials going through the process are consistent with what have been understood in R&D so yeah that's another thing that we see a lot of within our customer base.
Dave:
Okay Jamie, so the next thing I want to touch on was really asking you about what the most effective way to characterise a powder is and how this can help with your customer's processes. Can you give us an idea of how your technology could help answer those questions?
Jamie:
Yeah absolutely. I think it kind of comes back to some of the points I made earlier; that the first thing to understand is really the complexity of powders.
Powders just aren't inherently good or bad for a process, they don't necessarily fall into very simple categories of free flowing and cohesive and very cohesive for example, and they consist of a bulk assembly of particles, liquids and gases.
So even just understanding everything about the particles alone, doesn't necessarily tell you everything about how the powder behaves. So when a powder goes into a process it goes in as that bulk assembly, so from our perspective the important thing is to really characterise it as that bulk assembly so as its collection of particles, liquids and gases, but also to subject it to the kind of conditions that will go through in a process, there's little point in generating a whole load of numbers if they're not relevant to your process and that's really the key thing in our approach, that the data we generate is process relevant and in some cases certain parameters we generate maybe more relevant to a particular application, others maybe more relevant to another application, but it's about finding what the parameters are that really dominate your application.
So with the FT4-powder it provides a multivariate approach, so a whole series of different methodologies that subject the powders to different stress conditions, different strain conditions, different flow regimes and measure its response.
The idea being that it's subjecting the powder to the kind of things that it will go through in process quantifying, how it responds and reacts and therefore providing data that is relevant to a wide range of different applications and the beauty is that all of that capability is contained in one instrument, so rather than having to have a whole series of different instruments that are measuring different things about your powders, you can quantify a whole range of dynamic, bulk and shear properties in one automated instrument.
So the key of powder characterisation really is as much data as possible but as I say it's really important that data is relevant and that's where our technology comes in.
Dave:
Okay the other thing that just popped into my head is there anything with the evolution of the tech that you'd like to talk about. Are you going to improve the other device very soon? Is there something coming in the pipeline that you can talk about or you want to talk about?
Jamie:
Yeah, so we're always looking at new product development and it just so happens there are a couple of things in development which for the moment I can't really go into too much, but let's just say what's this space!
But the key thing is really to look at different ways to characterise the powder as I mentioned in my last response, that the more we're exposed to different industries, the more we discover ways in which powder is handled and the kind of things that they're subjected to.
So things like environmental conditions have a big impact, so it's really important that customers are able to then include that kind of testing within their usual suite of tests. So for example, I touched on it earlier but additive manufacturing is a huge new growth area for us, so understanding how powders are dispensed in an AM printer, how they're spread in the build chamber, all of the things that we that we measure with our technology, such as resistance to flow, the ability to air-aids, the ability to release air contained within a bulk.
These are really important things that contribute towards what people often refer to as a spreadability, but the more relevant we can make our tests and the more we can learn about powders under those conditions, then the more relevant our testing becomes to that industry.
So yeah, we're always looking to develop new things particularly based on what we learn from working with our users and our partners in different industries
Dave:
Okay Jamie so the other question I wanted to ask you was what industries have you seen the most rapid growth in recent years?
Jamie:
Definitely additive manufacturing or 3D printing, it's obviously a huge growth area, not just for us but across industry in general, more and more applications have been developed for the technology.
I think five or six years ago, when I was really becoming more and more exposed to additive manufacturing, a lot of what people were working with was polymer materials for prototyping, but now we see more and more metals being used for real world manufacturing of parts and of course we've probably all seen examples in the press of things like fuel nozzles, nozzles modelled by or manufactured by GE for the aerospace industry, so it's a real huge growth industry and our technology lends itself very well to that.
Within additive manufacturing machines, powders have been subjected to different conditions, one of the real common parameters that people are looking best to understand is how powder is spread within the build chamber of an AM machine and certain things that we measure such as the flow energy of a powder, the permeability of a powder, the resistance to force flow, such as friction and interlocking between particles, these kind of things really contribute massively to spreadability and spreadability is really important in any AM process.
So we see our technology has now been adopted by everything from the powder producers, the powder suppliers, the manufacturers of AM machines but even the end users, so right across that whole process chain additive manufacturing, we're seeing our technology has been adopted and of course we're learning more and more about about what we can do there and how and where technology can help and how we can develop new products and new methodologies to help further in the future.
Dave:
Thanks Jamie, that's some great information and insight into the powder management we can all learn from.
Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter to ensure you never miss a future podcast. We hope you enjoyed this podcast from Process Industry Informer, many thanks to Jamie Clayton, Operations Director at Freeman Technology, until next time it's goodbye from me Dave Howell and goodbye from Jamie, Goodbye
