Feed systems granule size

The Immobili dEn me System. The glucose isomerases used are immobilized and granulated to a particle size between 0.3 and 1.0 mm. The enzyme granulates must be rigid enough to withstand compaction when they are packed iato the column. Ca " acts as an inhibitor in the system, and therefore calcium salts need to be removed from the feed symp. Conversely, Mg " acts as an activator, and magnesium salts are added to the feed symp. 

The adsorbent particles are normally used as beads, extrudates, or granules (-0.1 -0.3 cm equivalent diameters) in conventional H2 PSA processes. The particle diameters can be further reduced to increase the feed gas impurity mass transfer rates into the adsorbent at the cost of increased column pressure drop, which adversely affects the separation performance. The particle diameters, however, cannot be reduced indefinitely and adsorption kinetics can become limiting for very fast cycles48 New adsorbent configurations that offer (i) substantially less resistance to gas flow inside an adsorber and, thus, less pressure drop (ii) exhibit very fast impurity mass transfer coefficients and (iii) minimize channeling are the preferred materials for RPSA systems. At the same time, the working capacity of the material must be high and the void volume must be small in order to minimize the adsorber size and maximize the product recovery. Various materials satisfy many of the requirements fisted above, but not all of them simultaneously. 

When fines are recycled as in iron ore sinter feed or fertihzer drum granulation, fines are rapidly granulated and removed from the distribution up to some critical size, which is a function of both moisture content and binder viscosity. Changing the initial-size distribution changes the granule porosity and hence moisture requirements [Adetayo et al., Chem. Eng. Sci., 48, 3951 (1993)]. Since recycle rates in drum systems are high, differences in size distribution between feed and recycle streams are one source of the limit cycle behavior observed in practice. 

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