Extended sectional quadrature method of moments for crystal growth and nucleation with application to seeded cooling crystallization

In this paper, an extended sectional quadrature method of moments (ESQMOM) is proposed to describe the kinetics of crystal growth and nucleation process, since the existing SQMOM could only be used for crystal aggregation and breakage process. A modified expression of particle number density is established with respect to the boundary nodes of all sections divided in the particle size range, and meanwhile, an interval merging strategy is developed to tackle the problem arising from particle flux flow between sections due to the crystal growth mechanism, such that moments could be predicted more precisely compared to the existing methods. Correspondingly, improved prediction of crystal size distribution (CSD) could be obtained. Based on these estimated moments, a multi-objective optimization algorithm is given to further improve estimation on the kinetic parameters of β form L-glutamic acid (β-LGA) cooling crystallization process. Simulation results on benchmark examples and experiments on seeded cooling crystallization of β-LGA are given to illustrate the effectiveness and merits of the proposed method.