Technological design elements for pulsed extraction columns with sieve trays

Abstract

Solvent extraction process is frequently used to obtain chemical compounds used in the nuclear field. In order to make nuclear energy a safe, clean and cheap energy source, one has resorted to the identification of new, innovative methods in the immediate transfer of the laboratory results to an industrial scale. A method is described for the design of liquid extraction columns by scaling up from the results of small scale plant tests. Such a method was applied for scaling up a pulsed column with sieve trays using the dimensions of an experimental model column. The scale-up method is based on the assumption that the height of the column is independent of column diameter, and that increased backmixing accounts entirely for differences in performance on small and large scales. This paper uses the results obtained on an experimental model column for the purpose of designing a high capacity column. The final result consists in determining the diameter and height of a scaled up column by using like parameter the number of transfer units corresponding to a compartment, a value that will stay the same for the laboratory-scale column and for the large-scale (pilot or industrial) column.