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Determination of the just‐suspended speed, N js , in stirred tanks using electrical resistance tomography (ERT)
Author(s) -
Teoman Baran,
Sirasitthichoke Chadakarn,
Potanin Andrei,
Armenante Piero M.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.17354
Subject(s) - electrical resistivity and conductivity , electrical resistivity tomography , electrical resistance and conductance , mixing (physics) , tomography , materials science , electrode , analytical chemistry (journal) , mechanics , electrical engineering , chemistry , engineering , composite material , chromatography , optics , physics , quantum mechanics
N js , the minimum agitation speed to just‐suspend dispersed solids in liquids in stirred tanks, is a critical parameter to operate industrial processes. The focus of this work was to develop a novel observer‐independent method to experimentally obtain N js in tanks that cannot be visually inspected internally using electrical resistance tomography (ERT). The mean bulk resistivity was measured across electrodes mounted on an ERT linear sensing probe placed inside a stirred tank containing water and glass beads. As the agitation speed increased, more solids became suspended and the resistivity measured by the probe changed. Plots of resistivity variation vs. agitation speed resulted in an S ‐shaped curve that could be analyzed to determine N js . The N js values obtained with this novel approach compared very favorably with those obtained using other methods requiring transparent tanks. It is expected that the ERT method proposed here could find applications in many industrial solid–liquid mixing processes.