Solid suspension and liquid phase mixing in solid-liquid stirred tanks

Abstract

Stirred tanks are widely used in chemical process industries for catalytic reactions, dissolution of solids, crystallization, and so on. In designing and optimizing such processes, suspension quality of slurry is an important parameter. Suspension quality depends upon complex interactions of impeller generated flow, turbulence, and solid loading. Most of the earlier work on solid suspension focuses on identifying critical impeller speed for just suspension of solids (N_js). In this study, apart from N_js, aspects like cloud height and liquid phase mixing in solid-liquid suspensions were also studied. A new way of characterizing solid-liquid suspensions and liquid phase mixing using nonintrusive wall pressure fluctuation measurements has been developed. Systematic experimental data on N_js, cloud height, power consumption, mixing time, and circulation time over a range of solid volume fraction and impeller speeds have been presented here. The results and discussion presented here will have useful implications for designing solid-liquid stirred tanks.