Impeller design assisted by physical modeling and pilot plant trials

Abstract

A physical model of a batch aluminum degassing reactor equipped with the rotor-injector technique was used to measure deoxidation kinetics of water, assuming that this kinetics is similar to dehydrogenization of aluminum. Performances of three different impeller designs were tested with the model, two of them available commercially, while the third one is a design proposed in this work, which shows a better performance than the two commercial designs reducing the degassing time between 14% and 34%, the gas consumption between 14% and 32%, and an increment in gas efficiency between 22% and 49% compared with the commercial designs. Performance of the impellers in aluminum was tested in a pilot degassing unit, and again, the impeller design proposed showed a better performance by reducing the amount of hydrogen in liquid aluminum after 10min of degassing 1/2 respect to the commercial design A and 2/3 respect to the design B.