Mixing energy dissipation

High Shear High shear impellers take a variety of proprietary forms and are used primarily for producing emulsions. Their design maximizes the portion of the mixing energy dissipation which is classified as shear. High shear impellers are available for both tank and inline applications. 

Inline motionless mixers derive the fluid motion or energy dissipation needed for mixing from the flowing fluid itself. These mixers iaclude orifice mixing columns, mixing valves, and static mixers. 

The component with the lower viscosity tends to encapsulate the more viscous (or more elastic) component (207) during mixing, because this reduces the rate of energy dissipation. Thus the viscosities may be used to offset the effect of the proportions of the components to control which phase is continuous (2,209). Frequently, there is an intermediate situation where a cocontinuous or interpenetrating network of phases can be generated by careflil control of composition, microrheology, and processing conditions. Rubbery thermoplastic blends have been produced by this route (212). 

Thus in a mixed system, as e.g. in a stirred tank, the rate of agglomeration additionally depends on the shear field and therefore on the energy dissipation e in the vessel. Furthermore, in precipitation systems solution supersaturation plays an important role, as the higher the supersaturation, the stickier the particles and the easier they agglomerate (Mullin, 2001). This leads to a general formulation of the agglomeration rate... 

The model is able to predict the influence of mixing on particle properties and kinetic rates on different scales for a continuously operated reactor and a semibatch reactor with different types of impellers and under a wide range of operational conditions. From laboratory-scale experiments, the precipitation kinetics for nucleation, growth, agglomeration and disruption have to be determined (Zauner and Jones, 2000a). The fluid dynamic parameters, i.e. the local specific energy dissipation around the feed point, can be obtained either from CFD or from FDA measurements. In the compartmental SFM, the population balance is solved and the particle properties of the final product are predicted. As the model contains only physical and no phenomenological parameters, it can be used for scale-up. 

Mersmann and Geisler, R., 1991. DeteiTnination of the local turbulent energy dissipation rates in stirred vessels and its significance for different mixing tasks. In 4th World Congress of Chemical Engineering. Karlsruhe, Germany. 

The dependence of the measured rise in fluid mixed-cup temperature on Reynolds number is illustrated in Fig. 3.12. The difference between outlet and inlet temperatures increases monotonically with increasing Re at laminar and turbulent flows. Under conditions of the given experiments, the temperature rise due to energy dissipation is very significant AT = 15—35 K at L/ i = 900—1,470 and Re = 2,500. The data on rising temperature in long micro-tubes can be presented in the form of the dependence of dimensionless viscous heating parameter Re/[Ec(L/(i)] on Reynolds number (Fig. 3.13). 

Ng, K. and Yianneskis, M. (1999) Observations on the distribution of energy dissipation in stirred vessels. Eluid Mixing 6 Symposium, 1999, Bradford. 

The experimental results in Fig. 27 show the influence of the reactor system (see Fig. 28) on the disintegration of enzyme activity. It was found that the low-stress bladed impeller results in less activity loss than the propeller stirrer which causes much higher maximum energy dissipation ,. The gentle motion the blade impeller produces means that stress is so low that its disadvantage of worse micro mixing in NaOH (in comparison with the propeller) is more than compensated. 

Robinson and Frosch<84,133> have developed a theory in which the molecular environment is considered to provide many energy levels which can be in near resonance with the excited molecules. The environment can also serve as a perturbation, coupling with the electronic system of the excited molecule and providing a means of energy dissipation. This perturbation can mix the excited states through spin-orbit interaction. Their expression for the intercombinational radiationless transition probability is... 

In the case of droplets and bubbles, particle size and number density may respond to variations in shear or energy dissipation rate. Such variations are abundantly present in turbulent-stirred vessels. In fact, the explicit role of the revolving impeller is to produce small bubbles or drops, while in substantial parts of the vessel bubble or drop size may increase again due to locally lower turbulence levels. Particle size distributions and their spatial variations are therefore commonplace and unavoidable in industrial mixing equipment. This seriously limits the applicability of common Euler-Euler models exploiting just a single value for particle size. A way out is to adopt a multifluid or multiphase approach in which various particle size classes are distinguished, with mutual transition paths due to particle break-up and coalescence. Such models will be discussed further on. 

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