Studying Dispersed Phase Holdup in a Pilot Plant Agitated Liquid-liquid Mixer by Developing Online Expanded Laser Beam based Technique
Abstract
Expanded Laser Transmission Technique (E-LTT), where a laser beam is used in conjunction with a beam expander large enough to cover the average drop size up to a few millimeters in the path of the laser in a liquid-liquid dispersion mixture, has been applied for online continuous measurement and investigation in a non-invasive manner of the drop phase volume fraction in an agitated flow mixer of a pilot plant scale. The limitations of beam scattering by the drops through the dispersion path were overcome by having liquids of matching refractive indices enabled by the temperature control system. This study reports for the first time the continuous measurements of the line averaged dispersed phase holdup for a pilot plant scale liquid-liquid mixer equipped with a commercial design mixer, where the measurements have no limitations to the geometrical aspects. Experimental results from a cubic mixing tank with a dispersion depth of 30cm were discussed. Online measurements were carried out in the presence of a revolving impeller and transmission of the expanded laser beam. The net volume of the mixer was 20.42liter, and the dispersed phase holdup that was successfully measured ranged between 0.15 and 0.75. In this work, arrangement of the laser setup was made to scan and measure continuously the line average dispersed phase holdup along the height of the pilot plant scale of the flow agitated liquid-liquid mixer. The E-LTT measurements were validated by comparing their results with those obtained from the mixer by shut-down procedure.
Recommended Citation
K. H. Abid et al., "Studying Dispersed Phase Holdup in a Pilot Plant Agitated Liquid-liquid Mixer by Developing Online Expanded Laser Beam based Technique," Chemical Engineering Science, vol. 251, article no. 117461, Elsevier, Apr 2022.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2022.117461
Department(s)
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
Dispersed phase holdup; Expanded laser transmission technique; Liquid-liquid flow mixer; Online measurements; Pilot plant scale
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0009-2509
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2022 Elsevier, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
06 Apr 2022