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Investigation and modeling of mass transfer in soybean oil hydrogenators
Author(s) -
Chen A. H.,
Mcintire D. D.,
Gibson P.,
Covey J. E.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
journal of the american oil chemists' society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.512
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1558-9331
pISSN - 0003-021X
DOI - 10.1007/bf02702110
Subject(s) - agitator , mass transfer , volume (thermodynamics) , mass transfer coefficient , soybean oil , chemistry , mathematics , thermodynamics , analytical chemistry (journal) , materials science , chromatography , physics , food science
The volumetric mass transfer coefficient (k L a) for soybean oil hydrogenation was determined from various sizes of hydrogenators, 0.2 kg, 45.5 kg, 455 kg, 15454 kg and 29100 kg. The 0.2 kg bench hydrogenator was shown to simulate and to approximate the gas/ liquid mass transfer resistance of the production hydrogenator. The activation energy for the production simulation of 7.2 kcal/mole, indicating the hydrogenation is strongly influenced by mass transfer. A mathematic model was constructed for the prediction of k L a when the calculated power per unit volume of oil (P/V), the ratio of the oil height vs hydrogenator diameter (H/T) and the Raynold's number of the agitator (N re ) are known. Production data obtained from the literature were used for testing the validity of the model; the maximum deviation was found to be 12%. Practical applications by using this model are also discussed.