Title
Wavelet image decomposition for characterization of freeze-dried pharmaceutical product structures
Abstract
This paper investigates the use of a wavelet image decomposition applied to electron microscope images in order to estimate the mass transfer coefficient of pharmaceutical cakes obtained by freeze-drying. The structure analysis of dried cakes obtained by means of a free-drying process, is a basic step for tuning the process conditions and for monitoring the quality of the dried product. The product structure and specifically its porosity affects the drying duration as it defines the resistance to the vapor flow during the ice sublimation. This parameter is becoming quite important as it is fundamental for modeling of the freeze-drying process and thus for an optimal design of the freeze-drying cycle. The direct measurement of this parameter is quite complex thus new simple approaches are being developed for its non-invasive estimation. This paper discusses the possibility of processing SEM images of the dried cake to analyze its morphology and to estimate the mass transfer coefficient. This approach has already been followed by processing the images via a 2D-FFT, here a faster solution based on the image wavelet decomposition followed by a non-linear processing based on an artificial neural network is described and the results are compared with the one obtained by the traditional direct mass transfer coefficient measurement.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1109/I2MTC.2015.7151602
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference
Keywords
Field
DocType
condition monitoring,drying,fast Fourier transforms,freezing,image processing,mass transfer,neural nets,pharmaceuticals,product quality,quality control,sublimation,wavelet transforms,2D-FFT,SEM image processing,artificial neural network,dried product,drying duration,electron microscope images,freeze-drying cycle design,freeze-drying process modeling,ice sublimation,mass transfer coefficient,noninvasive estimation,nonlinear processing,pharmaceutical cakes,porosity,process conditions,product structure,quality monitoring,vapor flow,wavelet image decomposition,Freeze-drying,Imaging,Neural Networks,Porosity,Scanning Electron Microscopy,Wavelet
Biological system,Porosity,Sublimation (phase transition),Scanning electron microscope,Electronic engineering,Optimal design,Artificial neural network,Mass transfer coefficient,Mathematics,Wavelet,Decomposition
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
3
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sabrina Grassini13717.96
Angelini, E.210.77
Pisano, R.311.11
Barresi, A.400.34