Phase dispersal

In industrial equipment, however, it is usually necessary to create a dispersion of drops in order to achieve a large specific interfacial area, a, defined as the interfacial contact area per unit volume of two-phase dispersion. Thus the mass-transfer rate obtainable per unit volume is given as... 

The specific inteifacial area based on unit volume of two-phase dispersion is given by... 

Atomization. A gas or Hquid may be dispersed into another Hquid by the action of shearing or turbulent impact forces that are present in the flow field. The steady-state drop si2e represents a balance between the fluid forces tending to dismpt the drop and the forces of interfacial tension tending to oppose distortion and breakup. When the flow field is laminar the abiHty to disperse is strongly affected by the ratio of viscosities of the two phases. Dispersion, in the sense of droplet formation, does not occur when the viscosity of the dispersed phase significantly exceeds that of the dispersing medium (13). 

Rates of nitration determined over a range of temperatures in two-phase dispersions have been used to calculate energies of activation from 59—75 kj/mol (14—18 kcal/mol). Such energies of activation must be considered as only apparent, since the tme kinetic rate constants, NO2 concentrations, and interfacial area all change as temperature is increased. 

The process of flushing typically consists of the foUowing sequence phase transfer separation of aqueous phase vacuum dehydration of water trapped in the dispersed phase dispersion of the pigment in the oil phase by continued appHcation of shear thinning the heavy mass by addition of one or more vehicles to reduce the viscosity of dispersion and standardization of the finished dispersion to adjust the color and rheological properties to match the quaHty to the previously estabHshed standard. 

FIG. 15-32 Spray tower with both phases dispersed,... 

Curve No. Column diam, in phase dispersed phase extractant Double amplitude, in Plate spacing, in Total throughput gal/(li)(fr)... 

Phase Dispersed There is an ill-defined upper limit to the volume fraction of dispersed liquid which may be maintained in an agitated dispersion. For dispersions of organic liquids in water [Quinn and Siglon, Can.J. Chem. Eng., 41, 15 (1963)],... 

Many times solids are present in one or more phases of a solid-hquid system. They add a certain level of complexity in the process, especially if they tend to be a part of both phases, as they normally will do. Approximate methods need to be worked out to estimate the density of the emulsion and determine the overall velocity of the flow pattern so that proper evaluation of the suspension requirements can be made. In general, the solids will behave as though they were a fluid of a particular average density and viscosity and won t care much that there is a two-phase dispersion going on in the system. However, if solids are being dissolved or precipitated by participating in one phase and not the other, then they will be affected by which phase is dispersed or continuous, and the process will behave somewhat differently than if the solids migrate independently between the two phases within the process. 

Two complementai y reviews of this subject are by Shah et al. AIChE Journal, 28, 353-379 [1982]) and Deckwer (in de Lasa, ed.. Chemical Reactor Design andTechnology, Martinus Nijhoff, 1985, pp. 411-461). Useful comments are made by Doraiswamy and Sharma (Heterogeneous Reactions, Wiley, 1984). Charpentier (in Gianetto and Silveston, eds.. Multiphase Chemical Reactors, Hemisphere, 1986, pp. 104—151) emphasizes parameters of trickle bed and stirred tank reactors. Recommendations based on the literature are made for several design parameters namely, bubble diameter and velocity of rise, gas holdup, interfacial area, mass-transfer coefficients k a and /cl but not /cg, axial liquid-phase dispersion coefficient, and heat-transfer coefficient to the wall. The effect of vessel diameter on these parameters is insignificant when D > 0.15 m (0.49 ft), except for the dispersion coefficient. Application of these correlations is to (1) chlorination of toluene in the presence of FeCl,3 catalyst, (2) absorption of SO9 in aqueous potassium carbonate with arsenite catalyst, and (3) reaction of butene with sulfuric acid to butanol. 

Equipment suitable for reactions between hquids is represented in Fig. 23-37. Almost invariably, one of the phases is aqueous with reactants distributed between phases for instance, NaOH in water at the start and an ester in the organic phase. Such reac tions can be carried out in any kind of equipment that is suitable for physical extraction, including mixer-settlers and towers of various kinds-, empty or packed, still or agitated, either phase dispersed, provided that adequate heat transfer can be incorporated. Mechanically agitated tanks are favored because the interfacial area can be made large, as much as 100 times that of spray towers, for instance. Power requirements for L/L mixing are normally about 5 hp/1,000 gal and tip speeds of turbine-type impellers are 4.6 to 6.1 i7i/s (15 to 20 ft/s). 

FIG. 23"37 Equipment for liquid/liquid reactions, a) Batch stirred sulfonator. (h) Raining bucket (RTL S A, London), (c) Spray tower with Loth phases dispersed. (d) Two-section packed tower with light phase dispersed, (e) Sieve tray tower with light phase dispersed, (f ) Rotating disk contactor (RDC) (Escher B V, Holland). (g) Oldshue-Rushton extractor (Mixing Equipment Co. ). 

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. 

Most of the electrochemical promotion studies surveyed in this book have been carried out with active catalyst films deposited on solid electrolytes. These films, typically 1 to 10 pm in thickness, consist of catalyst grains (crystallites) typically 0.1 to 1 pm in diameter. Even a diameter of 0.1 pm corresponds to many (-300) atom diameters, assuming an atomic diameter of 3-10 10 m. This means that the active phase dispersion, Dc, as already discussed in Chapter 11, which expresses the fraction of the active phase atoms which are on the surface, and which for spherical particles can be approximated by ... 

Dispersed phase Dispersion medium Technical name Examples... 

FIGURE 3.2 A model showing the presence of inorganic phase dispersed within a pol3nner matrix. 

Al-Malaika, S. and Amir, E.J., Thermoplastic elastomers Part III—Ageing and mechanical properties of natural rubber-reclaimed rubber/polypropylene systems and their role as solid phase dispersants in polypropylene/polyethylene blends, Polym. Degrad. Stab., 26, 31, 1989. 

The energy of fast fluid flow can be utihzed to intensify processes in chemical reactors and there are two basic ways of doing it by purposefully creating the cavitation conditions in the reacting liquid or by using a supersonic shockwave for fine phase dispersion. 

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