What Is Liquid-to-Powder Conversion?

A liquid chemical formulation, ingredient, or additive can be converted into a powder for reasons of shipping cost, shelf life, handling, or how it will ultimately be used. This shift, from liquid to dry solid, is called liquid-to-powder conversion, and it is used across a wide range of industrial manufacturing processes.

Valentine Chemicals has been a chemical contract manufacturer for almost four decades and specializes in liquid-to-powder conversion, and this post breaks down what the process involves, why companies use it, common applications, and how the right method gets chosen.

If you are trying to understand whether this process applies to your product, this is the place to start.

What Liquid-to-Powder Conversion Means

At its core, liquid-to-powder conversion means removing the liquid carrier — usually water or a solvent — from a solution, suspension, or slurry until what remains is a stable, dry solid. The result is a powder or granular material that retains the active components of the original liquid, without the water or solvent that made it a liquid.

This is not a single technique. It is a category of manufacturing processes, and several distinct drying methods exist, with spray drying and drum drying among the most common, each suited to different materials, particle requirements, and production volumes. 

Spray drying turns liquid into powder using hot air, while drum drying uses a heated rotating surface.

Which method is right depends on the specific liquid being processed and what the resulting powder needs to do.

We break down how these two methods stack up against each other in Spray Drying vs. Drum Drying: Which Is Right for Your Formula.

Why Companies Convert Liquids to Powders

Manufacturers convert liquid products to powder form for a number of practical, often overlapping reasons:

• Shipping and storage economics. Powders are lighter and more space-efficient than liquids carrying the weight and volume of water or solvent. That difference can meaningfully reduce freight costs and the storage footprint a product requires.
• Shelf life and stability. Removing water or solvent often slows degradation, microbial growth, or chemical breakdown, extending how long a product remains usable.
• Handling and formulation flexibility. Powders can be blended, packaged, or reconstituted in ways liquids cannot, which is useful for downstream formulators building their own products from a base ingredient.
• End-use requirements. Some applications — in agriculture, water treatment, and specialty chemicals, among others — call for a dry, free-flowing product by design, regardless of how the active ingredient started out.
• Concentration. Drying can concentrate active ingredients, reducing the volume needed to deliver the same potency.

Applications of Liquid-to-Powder Conversion

Liquid-to-powder conversion spans a wide range of industries. Some examples include:

• Oil and gas — drying additives, scale inhibitors, and treatment chemicals for easier transport and more precise dosing.
• Agriculture — converting liquid fertilizers, micronutrients, or carriers into dry, spreadable or soluble forms.
• Water treatment — producing dry polymers and coagulants that are easier to store and meter accurately.
• Personal care — turning liquid actives or polymers into powder form for formulation flexibility.
• Specialty and industrial chemicals — drying custom blends, dispersions, or proprietary actives where dry form can simplify handling or extend shelf life.
• Food and beverage — producing powdered ingredients, flavorings, and instant products from liquid concentrates.
• Pharmaceuticals — converting liquid actives and excipients into powder form for dosing precision and stability.

These are some of the more common applications, not an exhaustive list. If you are working with a liquid product in another industry entirely, the same underlying question still applies: would a dry form solve a problem this liquid form doesn't?

How the Right Drying Method Gets Chosen

Choosing a drying method is a real decision with real tradeoffs, there is no single “best” method across every material. A few factors tend to drive the decision:

• Heat sensitivity of the material. Some compounds degrade under high heat or prolonged exposure, which narrows the field of suitable methods.
• Desired particle characteristics. Particle size, density, and flow behavior in the finished powder affect how it will be packaged, handled, and used downstream.
• Production volume. Some methods are better suited to high-volume, continuous output; others fit smaller or more variable batch sizes.
• Equipment and process access. Not every manufacturer has in-house access to every drying method, which often shapes which option is realistic.

Confidentiality and IP protection are also practical considerations at this stage. When a proprietary liquid formulation moves through a drying process it didn't originate from, the company supplying that formulation needs confidence that its composition and process details stay protected.

We cover this decision in detail, including a direct comparison of spray drying and drum drying, in Spray Drying vs. Drum Drying: Which Is Right for Your Formula?

What Changes Once a Product Is Dried

Converting a liquid to a powder changes more than its physical form. It also changes how the product moves through the rest of its lifecycle. Packaging format options expand to include bags, drums, totes, and supersacks, each suited to different volumes and handling needs. Transport and storage logistics shift as well, since dry products typically tolerate temperature variation and handling differently than liquids do.

Quality control also shifts focus. Moisture content and particle size become key QC parameters for a dried product, alongside whatever purity or potency specifications applied to the original liquid. 

And production scale matters here too: a method and process built for small or variable batches looks different from one built for continuous, high-volume output, which is part of why drying method and production planning are usually decided together, not separately.

Working with a Manufacturing Partner

For companies without in-house drying capability — or evaluating whether to add it — working with a contract manufacturer is a common path. 

Valentine Chemicals is a fourth-generation, family-owned company that has operated continuously since 1938 and has focused on contract manufacturing since 1989, based in Lockport, Louisiana.

Valentine specializes in liquid-to-powder conversion, including spray drying and drum drying, and offers end-to-end support across liquid synthesis, drying, blending, and packaging under one roof. Spray drying capacity exceeds 50,000 liquid pounds per day, and drum drying capacity exceeds 200,000 liquid pounds per day, with operations running 24/7/365. 

For companies weighing whether liquid-to-powder conversion fits their product, that kind of integrated, single-site process can help simplify a decision that otherwise involves coordinating multiple vendors.

If you're evaluating whether liquid-to-powder conversion is the right path for your product, explore Valentine's pilot-to-production drying services to see how the process works in practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is liquid-to-powder conversion?

  Liquid-to-powder conversion is the process of removing the liquid carrier from a solution, suspension, or slurry to produce a stable, dry powder or granular material.

• Why do companies convert liquid products into powder form?

  Common reasons include lower shipping and storage costs, extended shelf life, easier handling and formulation, and end-use requirements that call for a dry product.

• What are the main methods used to convert liquid to powder?

  Spray drying and drum drying are two of the most widely used industrial methods, each suited to different materials and production needs. Other methods exist as well, depending on the application.

• Does converting a liquid to powder change its shelf life?

  Often, yes. Removing water or solvent can slow degradation and microbial growth, which tends to extend how long a product remains stable and usable.

• How do I know if my product is a good candidate for liquid-to-powder conversion?

  It depends on the material's heat sensitivity, the particle characteristics you need in the finished product, and your production volume. Comparing spray drying and drum drying is a good next step, or you can reach out to discuss your specific product.

The Hidden Challenges of Chemical Process Scale-Up (And What Actually Helps)

Most scale-up failures are not caused by bad chemistry. The formulation works. The lab results are solid. The team knows what they are doing. What fails is the transition between environments — the move from a controlled bench-scale setting to the commercial conditions that production requires.

Some of the challenges that emerge during that transition are well-documented: non-linear heat transfer, changes in mixing dynamics, reaction kinetics that behave differently at volume.

This post focuses on the challenges that show up less often on standard checklists but can cause problems once scale-up is underway. They are less about chemistry and more about the conditions under which chemistry has to perform: documentation quality, supply chain integrity, knowledge continuity, and partner selection. Recognizing them earlier can make a meaningful difference in production timelines, product quality, and the cost of resolving problems at commercial scale rather than pilot scale.

Valentine Chemicals has been in the chemical business since 1938 and has operated as a contract manufacturer since 1989. Over that time, the company has supported manufacturers across oil and gas, agriculture, water treatment, and specialty chemicals. The challenges below reflect what consistently surfaces in those engagements.

1. The Spec Sheet Written for Lab Conditions, Not Production

Development specifications are typically written to describe what came out of the lab. That is not the same as defining what a production process needs to reliably reproduce.

At bench scale, the chemist is the process. Tolerances that were never formally defined were still maintained, because one person controlled every variable. When that formulation is handed to a production team or a toll partner working from documentation, those informal controls disappear. The specification now has to carry the full weight of process consistency.

The result is a familiar failure mode: disagreements about whether a batch is in spec, not because anyone made an error, but because the specification was never designed for production conditions in. Particle size ranges, moisture content thresholds, viscosity windows, pH tolerances -- if these were acceptable ranges observed during development rather than deliberately defined production targets, they may not reflect what commercial equipment can consistently achieve.

What helps:

Treat specification development as a two-stage process. The development spec describes what was produced in the lab. The production spec defines the acceptable range of process inputs and outputs under commercial conditions, and is written with a production team's review, not just a chemist's. Doing this before the first toll trial is considerably less costly in time, material, and goodwill than reconciling it after.

2. Vendor Handoffs Hidden Inside the Process

Most scale-up risk assessments focus on technical questions: will the process work at volume? The logistical question that receives less attention is: what happens to the material between process steps?

When liquid synthesis happens at one facility, drying at another, and blending or packaging somewhere else, each transfer is a point where variables are introduced and accountability becomes diffuse. Material is exposed to freight handling, temperature shifts, and moisture during transit. Feed properties that were within spec when the material left one site may have drifted by the time it arrives at the next. When something goes wrong in a multi-vendor chain, identifying where the problem entered can be difficult and by the time it is resolved, timelines may have stretched and production windows may have been missed.

This is a structural feature of how many scale-up programs are organized, often by necessity. But the handoff risk is frequently underweighted in project planning because each individual step looks manageable in isolation.

What helps:

Where the process allows, consolidating multiple steps at a single site reduces the number of handoffs and makes troubleshooting more tractable. When synthesis, drying, blending, and packaging happen under one roof, there is no freight exposure between steps, attribution is cleaner, and adjustments can be made across the full process rather than at a single stage.

3. Raw Material Variability That Did Not Exist at Lab Scale

Lab development often uses a single lot of each input material, typically a research-grade lot purchased specifically for the project. The formulation is developed and optimized against that lot. Everything performed as expected, because the inputs were consistent.

At production scale, you are drawing from commercial supply. Different lots, potentially different suppliers, sometimes slightly different grades or purities within specification. A formulation that performed consistently at bench scale can behave differently when a key input varies even slightly -- in particle size distribution, moisture content, trace impurity profile, or viscosity characteristics.

This is not a formulation failure. It is a robustness gap: the formulation was never tested against the natural variation that commercial supply introduces. Teams often do not discover this until they are already in production where batch failures, out-of-spec product, and missed supply commitments are significantly harder to absorb than at pilot scale.

What helps:

Deliberately stress-testing formulations against input variability before committing to a production run. This can mean sourcing input materials from multiple lots or suppliers during late-stage development, or running small-scale trials against different input lots before scaling up. A toll partner who can accommodate that kind of iterative trial work, rather than committing directly to a full production run,can reduce the likelihood of encountering input sensitivity issues mid-production, where the options for recovery are fewest.

4. The Knowledge Transfer Gap

A significant portion of process knowledge at lab scale never makes it into documentation. The development chemist knows which conditions are sensitive without having written them down. They know what was tried, what failed, and what subtle adjustments produced consistent results. That accumulated knowledge shaped the formulation but it lives in their head, not in the spec sheet.

When that formulation is handed to a toll manufacturer, the production team starts from the documentation. They are solving problems the development team already solved, just without the benefit of knowing those problems were solved, or how. Early production runs can cycle through issues that were resolved months earlier during development — consuming time, material, and the goodwill of a partnership that is still getting established.

This gap is structural, not a failure of documentation discipline. Lab notebooks and process reports are not designed to transfer tacit knowledge. But the consequences become visible quickly once production begins.

What helps:

Structured knowledge transfer before the first toll trial -- not a spec handoff, but a working conversation between the development chemist and the production team. That conversation should cover process sensitivities, known failure modes, conditions that produced marginal results, and the informal decisions that shaped the final formulation. Some toll partners actively facilitate this kind of onboarding; others treat the spec sheet as the full brief. It is worth asking how a partner approaches that transition before committing to a first run.

5. QC Gaps Between Development and Production

At lab scale, quality control is close and continuous. A chemist runs the process and evaluates results in real time, using instruments and methods that were calibrated against the formulation they developed. Confidence in the spec is built gradually, through repeated observation of the same chemist, using the same equipment, in the same environment.

At production scale, particularly when working with a toll partner, QC may be separated from the production floor by time, distance, or organizational structure. The instruments used may differ from those in the development lab. The test methods may have been written for different product categories. The tolerances may have been adopted from a similar product rather than validated against this specific formulation.

Teams assume QC continuity because everyone is working from the same specification. But a specification defines target values, it does not guarantee that the measurement methods used to evaluate those values are equivalent across environments. A moisture content of 3% measured with one instrument under one set of conditions may produce a different result than the same measurement taken with different equipment in a different lab.

What helps:

Formalizing QC methodology alignment before any toll trial begins, not just agreeing on target values, but agreeing on how those values will be measured and what instruments and methods will be used. Where possible, choose a toll partner whose quality control lab is physically adjacent to production, so results are available during a run rather than after it. That proximity means process adjustments can be made in real time, rather than after a batch has already been completed.

6. Confidentiality in the Scale-Up Chain

Scale-up typically requires sharing formulation details, process parameters, and IP with multiple parties, including contract development labs, toll manufacturers, packaging vendors, and third-party QC facilities. Technical confidentiality measures like non-disclosure agreements are standard practice, and most organizations apply them without much friction.

Operational confidentiality is less consistently managed. Who on the production floor has access to formulation details. How batch records are stored, for how long, and under what access controls. Whether a toll partner serves direct competitors in the same product category, and if so, how information is separated at an operational level. These are questions that matter, but they tend not to surface until after a relationship is established and IP has already been shared.

A signed NDA is a legal instrument. It documents obligations and assigns liability. It does not, by itself, reflect how confidentiality is actually practiced inside an organization.

What helps:

Asking specific operational confidentiality questions before selecting a toll partner, not after. What the partner's existing client base looks like in terms of competitive overlap. How formulation information is handled inside the facility -- who sees it, how it is stored, what happens to it after a production program ends. The most meaningful indicator is track record: how long a partner has maintained confidential relationships, and whether their clients have found them trustworthy over time.

What Successful Scale-Up Engagements Have in Common

The challenges above are not primarily chemistry problems.The issues described here are harder to see in advance because they sit in the spaces between process steps -- in documentation gaps, supply chain transitions, knowledge that was never written down, and quality methods that were never formally aligned.

The teams that navigate scale-up most reliably share a few common practices. They treat the production specification as a distinct document from the development specification, written to reflect what commercial equipment can deliver. They plan explicitly for the handoffs in their process chain, not just the steps. They stress-test formulations against input variability before committing to a full run. They transfer process knowledge in conversation, not just in documentation. And they choose partners who can engage with those details, not just execute a spec.

None of this eliminates scale-up risk. It reduces the probability of encountering the most disruptive problems at the stage where the options for recovery are most constrained.

How Valentine Chemicals Supports the Transition

For manufacturers working on liquid-to-powder conversions, polymer reactions, or custom blending programs, the toll partner you choose has a direct effect on how many of these challenges you encounter and how quickly they can be resolved when they do.

Valentine Chemicals is a fourth-generation, family-owned business based in Lockport, Louisiana, with continuous operations since 1938 and a focus on contract manufacturing since 1989. Our facility handles liquid synthesis, spray drying, drum drying, custom blending, and packaging under one roof -- which means the vendor handoff risks described above can often be avoided. 

Our quality control lab is physically adjacent to production, so process decisions can be made in real time. And our client relationships -- many of them spanning decades -- reflect a confidentiality practice that goes well beyond standard NDAs.

We also work with pilot-scale and commercial-scale drying equipment on the same site, which allows formulations to be tested and refined in equipment that is geometrically representative of production, rather than translating results across different facilities.

If you are working through a scale-up program and want to understand how Valentine approaches the transition from pilot to commercial production, we would be glad to start a conversation

Explore Valentine's pilot-to-production toll manufacturing services

Spray Drying vs. Drum Drying: Which Is Right for Your Formula?

When a formulation exists in liquid form and needs to become a powder, the method used to get there matters. It affects particle size and morphology, product stability, throughput, downstream handling, and, in many cases, whether a commercial-scale process is even feasible.

Two methods dominate industrial liquid-to-powder conversion: spray drying and drum drying. 

Both are well-established, widely used across chemical, agricultural, food, and specialty manufacturing, and capable of high-volume continuous production. But they work differently, suit different materials, and produce different outputs.

This post explains how each process works, where each is commonly used, and what factors drive the decision between them. Valentine Chemicals operates both methods at commercial scale — the perspective here comes from running these processes in production, not just describing them.

How Drum Drying Works

In drum drying, liquid or slurry material is applied as a thin film directly to the surface of one or two large, steam-heated rotating drums. Heat transfers conductively from the drum surface into the material — this is contact drying, not convection. As the drum completes its rotation, a scraper blade removes the dried film. The process is continuous and handles materials that would be difficult or impossible to feed through an atomizer.

The output is typically flakes, sheets, or coarser powder, depending on how the dried material is processed after scraping. Drum-dried products tend to have a porous, open structure that reconstitutes readily. Output is coarser than spray-dried powder, though flakes can be ground to a target particle size after scraping.

Where Drum Drying Is Used

Drum drying is standard across several industries where feed viscosity is high or a coarser product form is acceptable:

• Food and dairy: Pregelatinized starches and flours, potato flakes, baby food, breakfast cereal bases, fruit and vegetable pulps, caseinates, instant soup and sauce bases

• Pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals: Thick pastes, botanical extracts, gel-based formulations

• Agriculture: Fertilizer pastes, micronutrient concentrates, high-solids agricultural inputs

• Industrial and specialty chemicals: Polyacrylamides and other polymer pastes, sodium benzoate, propionates, zinc oxide suspensions, industrial slurries, certain waste materials

The common thread is high viscosity or high solids content — materials that resist atomization but spread and dry effectively on a heated drum surface.

Key Differences at a Glance

Factor	Spray Drying	Drum Drying
Feed consistency	Low-to-medium viscosity solutions, slurries, emulsions	High-viscosity pastes, thick slurries, purees
Heat transfer method	Convective (hot air)	Conductive (direct drum surface contact)
Particle output	Fine, free-flowing powder	Flakes, sheets, or coarser powder
Particle size control	Medium — adjustable within the range suitable for atomization	Medium — flakes can be ground to a target particle size after scraping
Typical output form	Spherical, uniform particles with good solubility	Porous, irregular flakes or granules with good rehydration
Best-fit feed materials	Aqueous solutions, moderate-viscosity slurries, dispersions	Thick pastes, high-solids slurries, viscous materials
Scale-up path	Pilot → commercial	Pilot → commercial

The right method isn't always apparent from material type alone. In practice, process development and pilot testing often inform the decision as much as the initial specs do.

How the Decision Is Made

For most formulations, choosing between spray drying and drum drying comes down to a combination of material properties, product requirements, and how the powder will be used. These are some of the factors that matter most.

Feed Viscosity and Solids Content

This is usually the first screen. Spray dryers require a feedstock that can be pumped and atomized, generally aqueous solutions or moderate-viscosity slurries. Materials that are too thick, too sticky, or too high in solids content often can't be fed through an atomizer reliably. Drum drying handles these materials directly, applying them to the drum surface without the need for dilution or preprocessing.

If your feed can be atomized without significant modification, spray drying is likely on the table. If it can't, drum drying is worth evaluating first.

Target Particle Characteristics

If the end product requires fine, free-flowing powder with a specific particle size distribution — common in polymer, pharmaceutical, personal care, and some agricultural applications — spray drying is typically the path. The atomization process gives meaningful control over particle size and morphology that is difficult to replicate through drum drying alone.

If a coarser, flakier output is acceptable or preferred, particularly for products intended for rehydration, bulk blending, or applications where particle fineness isn't a specification, drum drying may suit the product better and often at higher throughput.

Thermal Sensitivity

Both methods expose material to heat, but the profiles differ. Spray drying involves brief exposure to hot air — the drying event is measured in seconds, though inlet air temperatures can be high. Drum drying involves direct contact with a heated drum surface at controlled steam pressure, over a longer but more moderated exposure window.

For thermally sensitive materials, the relevant question isn't simply "which method uses lower temperatures,” it's which heat profile causes less degradation for a specific chemistry. That answer varies by material and is best determined through pilot testing rather than assumed from general process descriptions.

Downstream Handling and Application

How the powder will be used affects which output form is preferable. Products intended for direct dissolution, fine dispersion, precise dosing, or encapsulation applications tend to favor the uniformity that spray drying produces. Products intended for reconstitution, bulk blending, or applications where a flakier structure aids solubility and texture may tolerate or benefit from drum-dried output.

This consideration is sometimes overlooked during process development but becomes important when the powder is evaluated in its final application.

What Teams Often Don't Know at the Start

Many formulation teams arrive without a firm drying method in mind. That's a reasonable starting point — the choice isn't always obvious before pilot data exists. A technically experienced contract manufacturer can help evaluate the feedstock, run pilot trials with one or both methods, and recommend a process based on results rather than assumptions. Arriving with a material and a product specification, rather than a predetermined drying method, is a workable way to begin.

When Drying Is One Step in a Larger Process

Some products require more than drying. A liquid may need to be synthesized or prepared before it can be dried. The dried powder may need to be blended with other materials, adjusted for particle size, or packaged in a specific format before it's ready for use.

When those steps happen at separate facilities, each handoff introduces freight cost, timing complexity, and potential for inconsistency between stages. 

Integrated processing, where liquid preparation, drying, blending, and packaging happen at the same site, removes those handoffs. For formulations moving from development into commercial production, that single-site model can simplify the scale-up path considerably.

About Valentine Chemicals

Valentine Chemicals is a fourth-generation, family-owned business based in Lockport, Louisiana, operating continuously since 1938 and focused on contract manufacturing since 1989. The facility sits in Louisiana's Mississippi River chemical corridor, with access to highway, rail, and intermodal transport.

Valentine operates both spray drying and drum drying at commercial scale:

• Spray drying capacity: exceeds 50,000 liquid pounds per day

• Drum drying capacity: exceeds 200,000 liquid pounds per day

Both methods are supported by pilot-scale infrastructure, allowing clients to evaluate process feasibility and product characteristics before committing to full commercial production. A QC lab operates adjacent to production for in-process monitoring.

Beyond drying, Valentine's single-site capability covers the full production sequence: polymer reactions and liquid synthesis, drying, custom chemical blending, packaging in drums, bags, pails, and supersacks, and temperature-controlled warehousing. 

For clients moving a formulation from development into production, that integrated capability can reduce the number of vendors involved and the coordination required between stages.

Ready to Evaluate Your Options?

The choice between spray drying and drum drying rarely comes down to a single factor. Material properties, product requirements, and production context all shape the decision and for many formulations, the answer becomes clear only through testing.

Valentine's technical team works with clients through the evaluation process, from initial feasibility through pilot trials and into commercial production. If you're working through a drying method decision — or you already know what you need and want to explore fit — contact Valentine Chemicals to start the conversation.

To learn more about Valentine's full liquid-to-powder conversion capabilities, visit our drying services overview.

Spray Drying vs Drum Drying Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the main difference between spray drying and drum drying?

  Spray drying atomizes a liquid feed into fine droplets and dries them in a heated air stream, producing fine, free-flowing powder with controlled particle size. Drum drying applies liquid or slurry material directly to a heated rotating drum surface and scrapes off the dried film, producing flakes or coarser powder that can be ground to a target particle size. The processes differ in how heat is transferred, what feed materials they can handle, and what particle output they produce.

• Which drying method is better for high-viscosity materials?

  Drum drying is generally better suited to high-viscosity materials. Thick pastes, high-solids slurries, and materials that resist atomization can be applied directly to a drum surface without dilution. Spray drying typically requires a feed that can be pumped and atomized, which limits its use with very thick or sticky materials.

• What industries use spray drying?

  Spray drying is used across food and dairy, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, specialty chemicals, personal care, and industrial chemical manufacturing. Common applications include powdered dairy products, dry pharmaceutical formulations, polymer powders, pesticide carriers, and detergents.

• What industries use drum drying?

  Drum drying is used in food processing, agriculture, industrial and specialty chemicals, and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Common applications include pregelatinized starches, potato flakes, baby food, fertilizer pastes, polyacrylamide powders, and high-viscosity industrial slurries.

• How do I know which drying method is right for my formulation?

  Feed viscosity, target particle characteristics, thermal sensitivity, and downstream application requirements are the primary factors. For many formulations, the answer becomes clear through pilot testing rather than specification alone. If you're unsure, a contract manufacturer with pilot infrastructure for both methods can help evaluate options before a commercial process is committed.

• Can a contract manufacturer run pilot trials for both spray drying and drum drying?

  Yes. Valentine Chemicals offers pilot-scale capability for both spray drying and drum drying. Pilot trials allow clients to evaluate product characteristics, process behavior, and feasibility before scaling to full commercial production.