TY - EJOU AU - Zhang, Shaozhi AU - Xie, Ruoyi AU - Xu, Mengjie AU - Chen, Guangming TI - Numerical Evaluation of Residual Water Content after Freezing during the Lyophilization of Platelets T2 - Fluid Dynamics \& Materials Processing PY - 2020 VL - 16 IS - 6 SN - 1555-2578 AB - Pre-freezing is an important stage in freeze-drying processes. For the lyophilization of a cell, freezing not only plays a role for primary dehydration, but it also determines the amount of residual (intracellular or extracellular) water, which in turn can influence the solution properties and the choice of operation parameters. The freezing of human platelets in lyoprotectant solution is theoretically investigated here. A two-parameter model and an Arrhenius expression are used to describe cell membrane permeability and its temperature dependency. It is assumed that the intracellular solution is composed of four components: sodium chloride, trehalose, serum protein and water, while the extracellular solution consists of three components. Non-ideal solution behaviors are predicted using measured data. The concentration of maximally freeze-concentrated solution is estimated on the basis of an assumption of solute hydration. The impacts of lyoprotectant composition and extracellular sub-cooling on intracellular supercooling and residual water content in the cell are analyzed. The values of activation energy of hydraulic permeability at low temperatures are tested to study their impact on the critical cooling rate. As the mass fraction extracellular lyoprotectant (trehalose+bovineserum albumin) increases from 5 wt% to 20 wt%, the intracellular water content at the end of freezing does not change, but the intracellular solution undergoes much higher super-cooling degree. Increasing the mass ratio of trehalose to bovine serum albumin does not change the intracellular water content, but can mitigate intracellular super-cooling. While 0.05 mol/kg trehalose is loaded into platelet, the total quantity of residual water at the end of freezing may raise by 4.93%. The inclusion of dimethyl sulfoxide (Me2SO) in protectant may bring negative impacts to the drying stage by increasing the residual water content and lowering the drying temperature. KW - Lyophilization; human platelets; freezing; numerical simulation DO - 10.32604/fdmp.2020.010352