Articles techniques et présentations

The mixer-settler principle is commonly used for industrial extraction processes. This is done by mixing the two immiscible liquids to perform mass transfer and subsequently separating them in gravity settler. However, when drop size becomes small, separation in a settler becomes difficult and entrainment of valuable chemical occurs. Moreover, entrained impurities dilute the product. Consequently, the settler should be designed and optimized in such a way that entrainment is minimized.

Computational fluid dynamics is a useful tool to study the separation behavior in a settler and can be used to optimize the design and operation of settler. The fluid flow pattern inside the settler and its consequence for entrainment can be evaluated. The mixture-model and the two-phase level set model in COMSOL Multiphyiscs are used in simulating phase separation of toluene and water.