Analysis of Mixing Efficiency in a Stirred Reactor Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Lead recycling is very important for reducing environmental pollution risks and damages. Liquid lead is recovered from exhaust batteries inside stirred batch reactors; the process requires melting to be cleaned. Nevertheless, it is necessary to establish parameters for evaluating mixing to improve the efficiency of the industrial practices. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a powerful tool to analyze industrial processes for reducing operating costs, avoiding potential damages, and improving the equipment’s performance. Thus, the present work is focused on simulating the fluid hydrodynamics inside a lead-stirred reactor monitoring the distribution of an injected tracer in order to find the best injection point. Then, different injected points are placed on a control plane for evaluation; these are evaluated one by one by monitoring the tracer concentration at a group of points inside the batch. The analyzed reactor is a symmetrical, vertical batch reactor with two geometrical sections: one cylindrical body and a semi-spherical bottom. Here, one impeller with four flat blades in a shaft is used for lead stirring. The tracer concentration on the monitoring points is measured and averaged for evaluating the efficiency inside the tank reactor. Hydrodynamics theory and a comparison between the concentration profiles and distribution of tracer curves are used to demonstrate both methods’ similarities. Then, the invariability of the tracer concentration on the monitoring points is adopted as the main parameter to evaluate the mixing, and the best injection point is found as a function of the shortest mixing time. Additionally, the influence of the impeller rotation speed is analyzed as an additional control parameter to improve industrial practices.