Hydrodynamic study of a flow-rig column by means of a radiotracer technique modelling with DTS-Pro 4

Abstract

The residence time distribution (RTD) is very reliable, providing valuable information about the performance of process equipment such as reactors and columns. The aim of this work is to study the effect of agitation in the hydrodynamic column of flow-rig. In this case, residence time distribution (RTD) is determined using the radiotracer approach. The radiotracer is the Technetium Tc-99m with half decay 6 h. It also emits gamma rays with an energy of 0.140 MeV. 2 mL of approximately 9 mCi activity Tc-99m was injected inside the column. The results show that in the conditions studied the column presents the anomaly, dead volume. The Intensity function A(t) confirms this result. Agitation has a beneficial effect in the reduction of dead volume. To revise the conception of the column or study other parameters like the variation flow rate can reduce or eliminate the dead volume. The RTD model indicated the column behaved as a Plug flow reactor (PFR) with mixing cells in serie (J = 4) model and the RTD experiment verified the model well.