4.6 Article

Generation of aqueous foams and fiber foams in a stirred tank

Journal

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH & DESIGN
Volume 167, Issue -, Pages 15-24

Publisher

ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.cherd.2020.12.013

Keywords

Aqueous foam; Fiber foam; Mixing tank; Radial impeller; Air content; Bubble size

Funding

  1. European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) [A70131]
  2. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The generation of fiber foams with surface aeration was studied by simultaneously mixing pulp fibers, surfactant, air, and water in a lab-scale tank under transient or turbulent conditions. The air content and bubble size were found to be influenced by mixing power and surfactant dosage, with the half-life time of the foam related to air content. The impeller type and mixing Reynolds number were identified as factors affecting the power number during mixing.
Generation of fiber foams with surface aeration was studied by simultaneous mixing of pulp fibers, surfactant, air and water in a lab-scale tank. The mixing took place in either transient or turbulent conditions. The effect of impeller type (RT-6 and BT-6), mixing speed, mixing power, and surfactant dosage on air content, bubble size and half-life time of the foam was investigated. Air content increased with increasing agitation power saturating to 50?75% depending on the SDS dosage. The dependence of bubble size on power was a power law with an exponent typical for processes where coalescence plays an important role. The relation between the half-life time and air content was well described by a power law. Power number of the BT-6 impeller was almost constant, and similar to that of pure water in turbulent conditions. The power number of the RT-6 impeller varied and was similarly to gas-liquid stirred tanks, in many cases clearly below that of water. The variability of the power number of RT-6 could be explained with the variation of the mixing Reynolds number. ? 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available