Spinning Disc–Spinning Bowl Contactor

Abstract

We present a new continuous contactor for rapidly mixing two liquid streams with low back-mixing. The contactor consists of a spinning disc and a spinning bowl. The bowl is fed continuously at the bottom. The fine drops of other liquid, generated by the spinning disc, impinge the thin film of rising liquid on the bowl’s inner wall and bring about mixing. The mixed stream rises to the top of the bowl and gets collected in stationary collectors by the radially outward flow at the bowl top. We demonstrate the continuous synthesis of spherical nanoparticles of curcumin through an antisolvent precipitation route using the new contactor.