Effect of eccentricity on laminar mixing in vessel stirred by double turbine impellers

Laminar mixing is often conducted in industrial processes, for example in polymerization reactors or in biotechnological processes. The laminar flow conditions caused problems of inefficient mixing due to some mixing anomalies like occurrence of the isolated mixing regions (IMR), segregation or compartmentalization phenomena. In this paper, flow visualization experiments are used to examine the size, positions and structure of the IMR regions as a function of Reynolds number and eccentricity ratio in the vessel equipped with double turbine impellers. It was found that the eccentricity brings deformation and reduction of the IMR volume. Moreover another benefit of using eccentrically located impeller systems is an improvement of axial flow. Two types of IMR regions are found: undulated IMR (UIMR) and ribbon-like IMR (RIMR). The structure of IMR depends on the eccentricity ratio defined as E/R. At the low eccentricity values the structure of single filament wrapped around core of the IMR is found. Additionally, the IMR region is inclined to the impeller plane. (C) 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.