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Reactor Design

This document summarizes key considerations for reactor design including how to achieve optimal mixing using baffles, spargers, and impellers. It discusses design parameters like gas holdup, bubble size, interfacial area, and correlations for kLa (gas transfer coefficient). Impeller type, speed, and flooding are addressed. Relationships between power input and gas holdup, heat transfer, and oxygen transfer rate are also covered. Cell broth rheology and its impact on mixing and mass transfer are briefly discussed.

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Brendan O'Sullivan
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94 views

Reactor Design

This document summarizes key considerations for reactor design including how to achieve optimal mixing using baffles, spargers, and impellers. It discusses design parameters like gas holdup, bubble size, interfacial area, and correlations for kLa (gas transfer coefficient). Impeller type, speed, and flooding are addressed. Relationships between power input and gas holdup, heat transfer, and oxygen transfer rate are also covered. Cell broth rheology and its impact on mixing and mass transfer are briefly discussed.

Uploaded by

Brendan O'Sullivan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ChE 660: Principles of

Biochemical Engineering
Slide Deck #6: Reactor Design

Prof. Marc G. Aucoin


Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Waterloo

A well mixed tank


How do you achieve optimal mixing?
How do you ensure minimal stagnant
boundary layers?
What equipment can be used?

Baffles
Standard equipment in stirred tanks
Break up circular flow patterns
created by rotation of the impellers
Attached vertically to the inside walls
of a cylindrical reactor
Typically 4 in a reactor

Spargers
Can be open pipes, perforated tubes,
porous diffusers, injector devices,
ringed spargers, etc
Distance from impeller and overall
sparger design can influence
dispersion of the air bubbles
Sparger design can influence
velocity of gas entering system and
bubble size to a certain extent
5

Impellers
Types of impellers can play a role in
the amount of shear in the system
Impellers can dictate motion of fluid
(axial vs radial flow)
Radial flow is often achieved with
Rushton type impellers
Axial flow is often achieved using
pitched blade impellers
6

Design Considerations

Down to 2

Impeller Flooding
When too much gas surrounds the
impeller and the impeller is no longer
dispersing liquid fluid

Impeller Reynolds Number

Minimum impeller speed:

Where No is the impeller speed, Di is the impeller diameter, Dt is the tank diameter, sigma
is the surface tension, g is the gravitational constant, and L is the liquid density

A=1.22 and B=1.25 for turbine


agitators
A=2.25 and B=0.68 for paddles

MIXING and POWER


Electrical power is used to drive
impellers in stirred vessels
The electrical power consumed is
always greater than the power
transmitted to the fluid
Power brought to the system will
directly and indirectly influence gas
solubility, transfer, dispersion

Gas hold up, bubble size, interfacial


area and correlations for kLa
Relationships can be developed for
how gas is transferred from each phase
How does the length of time a gas
bubble resides in a reactor affect the
ability gas transfer?
How does bubble size?

Gas holdup (h)


h = (Vgassed-Vungassed)/Vungassed

h = 1.8(Pg/VL)0.14 (vs)0.75
Gas holdup is therefore a
dimensionless number that is merely
a ratio of the differences in volume
between a system with gas flowing
through it or not
(Pg/VL is in W/m3 and vs is in m/s)

Gas hold up (Calderbank):

h=
Where is the gas hold up, Pg/V is the gassed
power per volume (Hp/ft3), vs is the superficial
gas velocity (ft/s), uB is the terminal rise velocity
of the bubble (ft/s), sigma is the interfacial tension
(dyne/cm=g/s) and L is the liquid density
(g/cm3)

Interfacial area and bubble size


(Calderbank and Moo-Young):
For clean coalescing air-water dispersion

For dirty non-coalescing air water dispersions


(culture broths)

Numbers

Ungassed power

Power Number vs Reynolds


Number

Gassing Factor vs Aeration Number


Not Found Often

Suggested to be within 12% of


experimental values (Doran 97)

Where K is based on geometry of the system

Number of impellers

OTR

Gassed Power
OTR can be increased by increased
Kga/kLa
Kga/kLa can be increased by increasing
Pg/V
Seldom any substantial benefit in
going beyond 2.5-3.0 hp/100 gal ~
5000 W/m3

Link between OTR and heat


for aerobic cultures
OTR = X/Yx/o *
Qtot (Btu/gal.h)=1.81 OTR (mmol/L.h)+ 2540
Pg (Hp)
* Note: this oxygen transfer rate is the oxygen transfer rate
that is required. In reality one should refer to this as the
oxygen uptake rate (OUR)

Superficial Gas Velocity

Pressure Rating
Typically fermentation are rated at 40
psia to withstand sterilization
Designing a reactor to hold pressures greater than
40 psia will incur significant increases in cost, lower
heat transfer efficiency (greater wall thickness).
Higher pressures can also cause buildup of CO2 in
the liquid phase which for some fermentations may
be detrimental.

Rheological Properties of Culture Broths


Important because it will affect mixing
and as a result affect heat and mass
transfer
Rheological properties will depend on
the organism cultured and the density
(number of organism per volume) at
which they are cultured
Rheological properties can also be
affected by cellular products
At low cell densities and at the
beginning of most cultures, broths tend
to behave like Newtonian fluids

Newtonian Fluids

The shear stress is proportional to the shear


rate by the viscosity of the liquid ( is the
viscosity of the liquid the same equation can
also be in terms of the apparent viscosity
(and for Newtonian fluids the apparent
viscosity is constant and can be seen as
equivalent to ))

Non-Newtonian Fluids
Are fluids whose apparent viscosity
changes with shear rate
Shear thinning (pseudoplastic) behavior is
when the apparent viscosity of the liquid
decreases with increasing shear
Shear thickening (dilatant) behavior is
when the the apparent viscosity of the
liquid increases with increasing shear

Most culture broths, if they behave like


a non-newtonian fluid, exhibit
pseudoplastic behavior

Power law model for Non-Newtonian


Fluids

For pseudoplastic fluids n<1


For dilatant fluids n>1
(and obviously for a Newtonian fluid
n=1)

Transport Processes

ChE660

Importance of mixing on
morphologyy
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc
e/article/pii/S1369703X99000121
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc
e/article/pii/S003295920200064X

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