Industrial mixer-settlers

Data are not currently available on the dispersion with the newer fluidfoil impellers, but they are often used in industrial mixer-settler systems to maintain dispersion when additional resonance time holdup is required, after an initial dispersion is made by a radial- or axial-flow turbine. 

In large industrial mixer-settlers, the settlers usually represent at least 75% of the total volume of the units. 

The earliest large-scale continuous industrial extraction equipment consisted of mixer—settlers and open-spray columns. The vertical stacking of a series of mixer—settlers was a feature of a patented column in 1935 (96) in which countercurrent flow occurred because of density difference between the phases, avoiding the necessity for interstage pumping. This was a precursor of the agitated column contactors which have been developed and commercialized since the late 1940s. There are several texts (1,2,6,97—98) and reviews (99—100) available that describe the various types of extractors. 

A widely used type of pump—mixer—settler, developed by IsraeH Mining Industries (IMI) (115), is shown in Figure 13a. A unit having capacity 8.3 m /min (2000 gal /min) has been used in phosphoric acid plants (116). The unique feature of this design is that the pumping device is not required to act as the mixer, and the two phases are dispersed by a separate impeller mounted on a shaft miming coaxially with the drive to the pump. 

In addition, solvent extraction is appHed to the processing of other metals for the nuclear industry and to the reprocessing of spent fuels (see Nuclearreactors). It is commercially used for the cobalt—nickel separation prior to electrowinning in chloride electrolyte. Both extraction columns and mixer-settlers are in use. 

Equipment. The preferred extraction technique in the rare-earth industry uses mixer—settlers. There are two basic reasons. The first is the use of relatively... 

Pertraction (PT) can be realized through a liquid membrane, but also through a nonporous polymeric membrane that was applied also industrially [10-12]. Apart from various types of SLM and BLM emulsion liquid membranes (ELM) were also widely studied just at the beginning of liquid membrane research. For example, an emulsion of stripping solution in organic phase, stabilized by surfactant, is dispersed in the aqueous feed. The continuous phase of emulsion forms ELM. Emulsion and feed are usually contacted in mixed column or mixer-settlers as in extraction. EML were applied industrially in zinc recovery from waste solution and in several pilot-plant trials [13,14], but the complexity of the process reduced interest in this system. More information on ELM and related processes can be found in refs. [8, 13-16]. 

Mixer-settlers are widely used in the chemical process industry because of their reliability, flexibility, and high... 

Fig. 26. Mechanically agitated industrial contactors, (a) mixer-settler (b) rotating-disk column (c) mixco column (d) asymmetric rotating-disk column (e) pulsed packed column (f) Podbielniak centrifugal extractor. (Reprinted from Doraiswamy, L. K and Sharma, M. M., Heterogeneous Reactions Analysis, Examples and Reactor Design, Vols. I and 2, 1984, John Wiley and Sons.)...

FIGURE 10.9 Flowsheet for the Haifa (Israel Mining Industries) hydrochloric acid acidula-tion route to phosphoric acid. Digestion for a short time is followed by solvent extraction in polyvinyl-chloride mixer settlers, which tolerate the corrosive conditions. (Reprinted from Chemical Engineering (NX) [64] by special permission from the journal and McGrawHill Inc.)... 

Mixer-settlers are widely used, particularly in the mining industry. Vendors are available, and they are easily designed. In the laboratory, small-scale, mini-mixer-settlers are available that offer as many as 16 countercurrent stages and are capable of achieving steady state using 500 mL of feed or less. 

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