Experimental study of power consumption, local characteristics distributions and homogenization energy in gas–liquid stirred tank reactors

Abstract

In this paper, the power consumption, the vertical local void fraction and the local gas–liquid interfacial area are investigated in the aerated stirred tank reactors (STRs) equipped with a rigid-flexible impeller. Meanwhile, the regressive correlation based on power consumption and interfacial area is proposed. Then a novel homogenization energy (HE = RSDPtm) expression based on power consumption and local interfacial area is redefined and used to indicate the mixing efficiency. The optimal operating mode is selected based on the change of the HE value. This paper can provide research ideas for structural optimization of stirred reactors.