Mark Hlawitschka, Hans-Jörg Bart, Jan Schäfer,
"Image analysis for design and operation of gravity separators with coalescing aids"
, in The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Wiley Online Library, Seite(n) 1-16, 6-2022, ISSN: 1939-019X
Original Titel:
Image analysis for design and operation of gravity separators with coalescing aids
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
In gravity separators, also known as settlers, two immiscible liquid phases separate due to differences in density. In extraction mixer-settler units, a dispersion needs to be separated within the separator unit. In order to overcome the hitherto purely experimental design, a knitted mesh adapted model as well as an automated test facility were developed in this work, which easily enable a scale-up to industrial units. An automation allows for a controlled investigation of knitted meshes as coalescing aids in settlers, and this was achieved via photo-optical probes with an optimized image analysis technique. It overcomes the limitations of neuronal network training based on manually annotating images using computer-generated image data. Therefore, the new methodology and setup are explained in detail, and the derivation and application of a new model to design separators with knitted meshes as coalescing aid is presented and compared to experimental results using meshes of different structures and materials. Finally, case studies and scale-up are discussed.