Inzynieria Chemiczna i Procesowa, Vol.16, No.1, 63-74, 1995
APPLICATION OF POLYDISPERSIVE SORBENTS IN ADSORBERS WITH CIRCULATING BED
Application of polydispersive sorbents in the adsorber with double recirculation of a bed and the sink in a cycle of external recirculation were analyzed. Two variants of feeding were considered - the bottom feeding and top feeding. Minimum volume fraction of the sorbent in the zone of internal recirculation was determined. This volume fraction is due only to circulation of a liquid in the system. This mode of operation is inadequate because of low sorbent volume fraction in internal recirculation zone of the adsorber. It can be improved by introducing centrifugal forces which cause separation of particles. The simplest solution Is to introduce injection jet which swirls the stream of a liquid in the circulation tube. The increase of sorbent volume fraction is not satisfactory in this case; this is connected with counteractive effects of rotation speed increase as injection increases. The increase of injection causes diminishing of the residence time of a particle in the separation zone. This is the limiting factor for the range of the control of sorbent volume fraction and for the residence time of particles in the internal recirculation zone. So it is useful to control separately the rotation speed of liquid stream control and the rate of flow in the circulation tube. Installation of a propeller with an adjustable pitch in the circulation tube gives such a possibility. The best solution is a system with a circulation tube and a rotor with straight blades fastened along the shaft in planes passing through the centre of rotation and a separate system pumping water to the circulation tube. This is the case of a separation system with the stream of liquid rotating with constant angular velocity. For this case the dependence between separating efficiency and the geometry of the system and parameters of flow was derived. Separated control systems of the rotation speed of liquid stream and rate of now in the separation zone makes it possible to change the volume fraction of a sorbent in the adsorber in the widest range of values. High volume fraction of a sorbent is not tantamount to high utilization of the volume of the adsorber because this may be caused by particles whose residence time is too long as far as the sorption kinetics is concerned. So the problem is of optimization nature and must be examined in the context of an individual sorbent having specified size distribution By means of the formulas derived for the residence time of each fraction, after introducing kinetic data, the procedure described above enables one the optimization of the adsorber with double recirculation of a bed and the sink in the cycle of external recirculation.