High shear mixer works as a heat exchanger enhancing the liquid–liquid direct contact heat transfer

Abstract

As an indispensable unit equipment in industrial production, the design of efficient heat exchangers is of great significance to improve energy utilization rate. In this paper, the in-line high shear mixer (HSM) was investigated as a heat exchanger for the first time by experiments and assisted with CFD simulations, and the heat transfer performance was measured using kerosene and thermal water as the heat transfer fluids. Effects of operational parameters, including rotor speed, fluids temperature and flow rate, as well as the structural parameters, involving the rotor teeth number, teeth height, and the shear gap, were studied on the volume heat transfer coefficient and the heat transfer efficiency of such inline HSM. The results indicated that the volume heat transfer coefficient can be significantly improved by increasing the rotor speed and the flow rate of the heat transfer fluids, but reducing the heat transfer temperature difference, whereas increasing the thermal fluid flow rate deteriorates heat transfer efficiency. Furthermore, the structural parameters including rotor teeth number and teeth height, the shear gap within the stator and rotor were optimized to enhance the heat transfer of HSM. The optimal HSM possesses a shear gap of 0.5 mm, a teeth height of 10 mm and a teeth number of 6, which can generate larger turbulent energy dissipation rate and higher shear rate, meanwhile make more fluids jet out of the shear gap and stator hole. The maximum volume heat transfer coefficient and heat transfer efficiency can be up to 2522.8 kW·m−3·°C−1 and 92.4% with the optimal structure. Finally, the dimensionless correlations of heat transfer performance were established to guide the operating mode and structural design of high-efficiency high shear mixer.