Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, Vol.51, No.2, 166-169, 2018
Submerged Recirculating Liquid Jet Mixing: A Comparison of Nozzle Orientation and Tank Aspect Ratio
Liquid jet mixing is a common practice in industry when mechanical mixing becomes unfeasible due to the scale of mixing vessel required. The present study employed a flow visualization technique to investigate the agitation of a non-Newtonian fluid (0.5 wt% xanthan gum solution) using a submerged recirculating jet. Building on the work already published by the authors, the present study seeks to identify how the mixing performance is influenced by two factors: namely, jet-nozzle orientation (upward and downward facing) and mixing vessel aspect ratio (1 : 1 and 3 : 1). It was found that the nozzle orientation played a much larger role in the 1 : 1 setup compared to the 3 : 1 setup. The best performing setup for the 0.5 wt% xanthan gum solution was a 1 : 1 tank with an upward facing nozzle. It is postulated that this is because the suction in this setup has a net positive effect on the mixing performance; whereas, for other setups, the interplay between jet and suction has a deleterious effect.