The gelation phenomenon often occurs in the solution
crystallization
process, which would seriously affect the process robustness and product
quality. In this paper, the gelation phenomenon during the solution
crystallization of perindopril erbumine (PDP) was systematically studied
by spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. The results suggest that
the PDP gel does not have the characteristic diffraction peak of the
PDP crystal and the infrared spectrum has changed significantly compared
with that of the crystal product. Accordingly, the mechanism of the
gelation phenomenon of PDP was inferred to follow the status of aggregates,
amorphous, crystalline fibers, and jelly-like phases during the gelation
process development. Based on the proposed gelation mechanism, three
controlling strategies, namely, direct cooling crystallization, seeding-assisted
crystallization, and oscillatory temperature crystallization, were
carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of process optimization.
Inspired by direct nucleation control theory, through controlling
the seed crystal number before the cooling step, the oscillatory temperature
crystallization strategy effectively avoided the gelation problem,
and the crystal product has good filtration properties and powder
properties, which provides a feasible process method for practical
production, avoiding the gelation phenomenon and important changes
of the production line.