Wet stirred-media milling (WSMM) is among the most widely used techniques for producing high-drug-loaded stable nanosuspensions, owing to its ease of scale-up, good repeatability, operational versatility and broad applicability. However, WSMM is also associated with high energy demand, substantial heat generation, and extended milling times. To reduce energy consumption, optimize the process and gain a deeper understanding of breakage kinetics, robust mechanistic models should be investigated. In this study, a microhydrodynamic (MHD) model framework is examined, and the first closed-form analytical solution for granular temperature θ, a key parameter in the MHD model, is derived. In addition, an existing power consumption correlation from the literature is adopted and extended by introducing an additional parameter that accounts for bead-size effects, and the resulting improved formulation is embedded into the analytical framework. This integration facilitates continuous evaluation of power consumption, θ and the additional MHD parameters across the milling parameter space. With backward compatibility and high-quality fitting performance, the improved power consumption model enables robust, reliable, and systematic evaluation of sensitivities and trade-offs over diverse milling conditions, including varying stirrer speeds, bead loadings, and bead sizes.
Ozsoysal et al. (Tue,) studied this question.