Pharmaceutical industry has been listed as one of the serious pollution industries in China. As the important and necessary part of pharmaceutical industry

crystallization technology should be optimized and updated to meet the clean production requirement. The pollution and waste caused by crystallization include toxic solvent applied

VOC emission

waste of mother liquor

bad properties of crystal product

and out-dated batch operation

etc. In face of these problems

the design methods and technology of clean production of pharmaceutical crystallization are reviewed and summarized. (a) Green crystallization. The solvent should be clean and effective. Single type of solvent and little consumption should be considered. Reduce the waste (gas

liquid and solid) emission by increasing crystal yield. Crystalline mother liquor and by-products should be reused and recycled. (b) Crystal engineering. Simplify the processes of filtering

washing

drying and tableting by optimizing crystal shape and interfacial properties. Solvates should be avoided to reduce the VOC emission. (c) Continuous crystallization. Compared with batch operation

novel continuous crystallization technology takes more advantages. (d) Intelligent device. Crystallization device should be optimized based on fluid dynamics to the benefit of crystal nucleation and growth. Integration of devices could reduce materials and energy consumption.