화학공학소재연구정보센터
Chemical Engineering Research & Design, Vol.92, No.4, 612-618, 2014
Analysis of concentration polydispersity in mixed liquid-liquid systems
Inter-phase mass transfer for each chemical component is typically modelled with one material balance for the continuous and one for the dispersed phase. This approach contains inherently an assumption that the phases are well mixed at least locally. For the dispersed phase, this assumption requires that breakage and coalescence are significantly faster compared to the mass transfer, which is not necessarily true. It is important to carry out preliminary assessment whether the dispersed Phase segregation is important and should be considered in subsequent modelling efforts, before embarking heavy multidimensional simulations where all possible dispersed phase variations are considered. In this work, relevant time scales are first defined and used for analyzing dispersed phase mixedness in liquid-liquid systems with mass transfer between the phases. Then appropriate dispersed phase modelling tools for the purpose are evaluated. Simple droplet number density based analysis is shown to estimate mixedness reasonably well. Furthermore, the drop number density approach is also shown to predict the average drop sizes with almost comparable accuracy than the full population balances. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.