Mixing residence time distribution

Generally speaking, the design of TBR requires knowledge of hydrodynamics and flow regimes, pressure-drop, hold-ups of the phases, interfacial areas and mass-transfer resistances, heat transfer, dispersion and back-mixing, residence time distribution, and segregation of the phases. 

Further details of the mass transfer enhancement techniques in membrane separation processes are reported by Belfort and Al-Bastaki and Abbas. In this entry, the focus is on the flow instabilities produced by Dean vortices in curved and coiled tubes because of their advantages over the other techniques, viz., lower axial dispersion, better radial mixing, residence time distribution closer to plug flow, higher mass... 

Pressure Velocity Strain Viscosity Density Acceleration Gradients Tensor Volume Flow Force Melting Deformation Mixing Residence Time Distribution... 

The other continuous reactor processes listed earlier will, in terms of mixing, residence time distributions and kinetic models, fall between the PFT and the ideal CSTR. The PFT, as mentioned earlier, is an ideal reactor that should be... 

Flow regimes, pressure drop, phase holdup, liquid distribution, mixing, residence time distribution, heat and mass transfer, interfacial areas... 

Preferential Removal of Crystals. Crystal size distributions produced ia a perfectiy mixed continuous crystallizer are highly constraiaed the form of the CSD ia such systems is determined entirely by the residence time distribution of a perfectly mixed crystallizer. Greater flexibiUty can be obtained through iatroduction of selective removal devices that alter the residence time distribution of materials flowing from the crystallizer. The... 

In turbulent flow, axial mixing is usually described in terms of turbulent diffusion or dispersion coefficients, from which cumulative residence time distribution functions can be computed. Davies (Turbulence Phenomena, Academic, New York, 1972, p. 93), gives Di = l.OlvRe for the longitudinal dispersion coefficient. Levenspiel (Chemical Reaction Engineering, 2d ed., Wiley, New York, 1972, pp. 253-278) discusses the relations among various residence time distribution functions, and the relation between dispersion coefficient and residence time distribution. 

Motionless mixers continuously interchange fluid elements between the walls and the center of the conduit, thereby providing enhanced heat transfer and relatively uniform residence times. Distributive mixing is usually excellent however, dispersive mixing may be poor, especially when viscosity ratios are high,... 

An industrial chemical reacdor is a complex device in which heat transfer, mass transfer, diffusion, and friction may occur along with chemical reaction, and it must be safe and controllable. In large vessels, questions of mixing of reactants, flow distribution, residence time distribution, and efficient utilization of the surface of porous catalysts also arise. A particular process can be dominated by one of these factors or by several of them for example, a reactor may on occasion be predominantly a heat exchanger or a mass-transfer device. A successful commercial unit is an economic balance of all these factors. 

A model of a reaction process is a set of data and equations that is believed to represent the performance of a specific vessel configuration (mixed, plug flow, laminar, dispersed, and so on). The equations include the stoichiometric relations, rate equations, heat and material balances, and auxihaiy relations such as those of mass transfer, pressure variation, contac ting efficiency, residence time distribution, and so on. The data describe physical and thermodynamic properties and, in the ultimate analysis, economic factors. 

The combination of reac tor elements is facihtated by the concept of transfer functions. By this means the Laplace transform can be found for the overall model, and the residence time distribution can be found after inversion. Finally, the chemical conversion in the model can be developed with the segregation and maximum mixed models. 

Topics that acquire special importance on the industrial scale are the quality of mixing in tanks and the residence time distribution in vessels where plug flow may be the goal. The information about agitation in tanks described for gas/liquid and slurry reactions is largely apphcable here. The relation between heat transfer and agitation also is discussed elsewhere in this Handbook. Residence time distribution is covered at length under Reactor Efficiency. A special case is that of laminar and related flow distributions characteristic of non-Newtonian fluids, which often occiu s in polymerization reactors. 

Little or no maintenance requirements Small space requirements Available m many construction materials No power requirements other than pumping Mixing achieved m short conduit lengths Minimal chance of material hangup or plugging Short residence times NaiTow residence time distribution Enhanced heat transfer Cost effective... 

Mixing, ideal or complete A state of complete uniformity of composition and temperature in a vessel. In a flow system, the residence time distribution is exponential, ranging from zero to infinity. 

Yim, S. S. S. and Ayazi, S. P., Residence Time Distribution in a Rotary Plow Through Device, Pluid Mixing V, Inst. ChemE. Symp. Series, No. 140, pp. 191-201, 1996. 

Flow regimes, operability Residence time distribution Mixing Transport processes Screening Optimization Validation... 

The term macromixing refers to the overall mixing performance in a reactor. It is usually described by the residence time distribution (RTD). Originally introduced by Danckwerts (1958), this concept is based on a macroscopic lumped population balance. A fluid element is followed from the time at which it enters the reactor (Lagrangian viewpoint - observer moves with the fluid). The probability that the fluid element will leave the reactor after a residence time t is expressed as the RTD function. This function characterises the scale of mixedness in a reactor. 

Kramers and Alberda (K20) have reported some data in graphical form for the residence-time distribution of water with countercurrent air flow in a column of 15-cm diameter and 66-cm height packed with 10-mm Raschig rings. It was concluded that axial mixing increased with increasing gas flow rate and decreasing liquid flow rate, and that the results were not adequately represented by the diffusion model. 

Glaser and Litt (G4) have proposed, in an extension of the above study, a model for gas-liquid flow through a b d of porous particles. The bed is assumed to consist of two basic structures which influence the fluid flow patterns (1) Void channels external to the packing, with which are associated dead-ended pockets that can hold stagnant pools of liquid and (2) pore channels and pockets, i.e., continuous and dead-ended pockets in the interior of the particles. On this basis, a theoretical model of liquid-phase dispersion in mixed-phase flow is developed. The model uses three bed parameters for the description of axial dispersion (1) Dispersion due to the mixing of streams from various channels of different residence times (2) dispersion from axial diffusion in the void channels and (3) dispersion from diffusion into the pores. The model is not applicable to turbulent flow nor to such low flow rates that molecular diffusion is comparable to Taylor diffusion. The latter region is unlikely to be of practical interest. The model predicts that the reciprocal Peclet number should be directly proportional to nominal liquid velocity, a prediction that has been confirmed by a few determinations of residence-time distribution for a wax desulfurization pilot reactor of 1-in. diameter packed with 10-14 mesh particles. 

Liquid residence-time distributions in mechanically stirred gas-liquid-solid operations have apparently not been studied as such. It seems a safe assumption that these systems under normal operating conditions may be considered as perfectly mixed vessels. Van de Vusse (V3) have discussed some aspects of liquid flow in stirred slurry reactors. 

The liquid residence-time distribution is close to plug flow in trickle-flow operation and corresponds to perfect mixing in the stirred-slurry operation, whereas the other types of bubble-flow operation are characterized by residence-time distributions between these extremes. 

Their conclusions are that the gas residence-time distribution in their mixing vessel is intermediate between that to be expected from one perfectly-mixed vessel and that from two perfectly-mixed vessels of equal size in cascade. The cascade behavior of two equal-sized mixers is approached with a relatively large impeller located half-way between the bottom and top surfaces. The response curve becomes similar to that of one perfectly-mixed vessel when small impellers are used or if the impeller is located below the half-way point. 

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