Granutools at the 2026 AIChE Annual Meeting  - November 8-12, 2026

November 8-12, 2026 · Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Filip Francqui, Managing Director of Granutools and President of IFPRI, will give two presentations at the 2026 AIChE Annual Meeting, both on Monday 9 November in Room 200C. They address two different industries: pharmaceutical tableting and battery electrode manufacturing, through the same question: what the way a powder densifies tells you about how it will behave in a process.

From Packing Fraction to Permeability: Insights for Improved Tablet Manufacturing

Monday 9 November · 3:48–4:06 PM · Room 200C (Level 2) · Paper 240b

Die filling is one of the most critical steps in tableting, and it is governed by something rarely measured: the permeability of the powder bed. Air has to leave the die cavity for powder to enter, and air trapped within the powder has to escape for the bed to densify further. Poor air evacuation means low packing density, more variability, and weaker tablets.

This work measures permeability across packing states representative of die filling. Densification was controlled on the GranuPack through a defined number of taps, from loosely poured at 0 taps to highly consolidated at 500, with permeability measured at each state using a purpose-designed cell. Lactose-based excipients differing in particle size distribution and morphology were studied, along with blends containing magnesium stearate.

Tablets were then produced on a compaction simulator at varying paddle and tableting speeds. A clear correlation emerged between powder permeability and tablet tensile strength, putting a measurable number on the role of air evacuation during die filling.

Powder Mechanisms behind Battery Manufacturing and Their Impact on Battery Performance

Monday 9 November · 4:42–5:00 PM · Room 200C (Level 2) · Paper 240e

In dry electrode manufacturing, PTFE fibrillation decides whether a free-standing film holds together. Too little and the film is fragile; too much and the particles entangle, flowability collapses, and the blend becomes impossible to process. Yet fibrillation is usually assessed qualitatively, which makes that processing window hard to locate.

This work quantifies it. Using the GranuPack on LFP, carbon black and PTFE blends, the mobility index α, which describes how quickly a powder densifies under tapping, proved a sensitive indicator: as fibrils develop and bind particles together, rearrangement slows and α falls. Longer fibrillation times lower α, and so does higher processing temperature, consistent with the viscoelastic behaviour of PTFE.

Flowability measured in parallel on the GranuDrum shows the other side of the trade-off: it drops sharply as temperature rises, to the point where the blend can no longer be handled. Between under-fibrillation and unprocessable powder, there is a window, and these two measurements locate it.

Meet Filip in Minneapolis

Granutools will not be exhibiting this year, but Filip will be attending the meeting. Both sessions are open to all registered attendees, and he is glad to arrange a time to talk about tableting, dry electrode processing, or powder characterization more broadly. Get in touch.

Both papers can be found in the online technical programme under numbers 240b and 240e.

Event details

2026 AIChE Annual Meeting

November 8–12, 2026 · Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota