Formulation

[Mahmoud_abu]

Dear engineers,
Hope this finds well,
I'm asking you today for help to find good references to do or make formulations, and as one who is totally new to formulating I need a good reference that I can learn from zero.
My boss wants to move me to formulation, and as one with a degree of chemical engineering, I don't have that wide knowledge in chemical formulation, so what you suggesting??
A web site, a book, a video??

Thanks

 

[Compositepro]

Don't you think it might help to tell us what you are formulating? In any case, formulating is like cooking, you develop recipes based on your knowledge and experience of available ingredients and use the equipment and processes available to achieve the desired goal. It really is not for beginners, but everyone has to begin somewhere. There are books for different fields of research, which you haven't mentioned. It does require very special talents that few people have, to be any good at it. But don,t worry if you aren't any good at it. You will get promoted to manager. If you are good you will stay in the lab, and maybe start your own company one day.

 

[Mahmoud_abu]

@Compositepro
Hello,
I'd like to thank you for your reply,
You're right, I had to mention which field I'm referring to,
It's in the pharmaceutical industry,
We're talking about wet granulation line, blending, tableting, upstream and downstream process,etc.
I'm asking about the chemical formulation for already existed products and new products.
My issue is the chemical formulation, how it must be suitable to the process are in the production.
Plus that I viewed your profile and saw you're working in carbon fiber development.
If there's a possibility I'd like to take you advice according to your experience in material, I want to prepare for my PhD and it's about material science.
Thanks again

 

[SuperSalad]

In my experience, which includes over a decade of formulating in the beginning of my career, a hiatus into general plant engineering, and now a dive back into formulating; formulating existing and new products is best learned from experienced coworkers. Being able to look at the existing formulas and asking the "what" and the "why" for components, orders of addition, and processing steps is tremendously more efficient than the trial and error method of figuring everything out for yourself from zero.

I would think, from my own experience with pharmaceuticals, that the processes and R&D to develop the formulas is well documented, so if you do not have a experienced coworker to learn from, there should be notes, and files to assist you in understanding what already exists.

Outside of that, additive and material suppliers will often have documentation and resources to assist you in understanding components and how and when to use them.

- Andrew