Developing a Reactor Model of a Reaction Mixing Pump based on the Internal Fluid Dynamics

Reaction mixing pumps (RMPs) belong to the group of side channel or peripheral pumps. These types of pumps are characterized by their low efficiency. Most of the input energy is dissipated inside the pump, resulting in high dispersion. This feature makes RMPs an interesting apparatus for multi-phase reactions. However, in order to use RMPs as chemical reactors, it is crucial to predict their behavior in terms of conversion, selectivity, and yield. This requires the development of a reliable reactor model for RMPs. In this work, a compartment model is introduced. This compartment model relies on the internal flow rates as parameters,which are initially unknown. To determine these flow rates, a fluid dynamical model was fitted to measured characteristic curvesof the pump. The parameters obtained from this fitting were then used to calculate internal flow rates. This approach was tested for two different RMPs and it was found that the compartment model accurately predicts the residence time behavior. These results demonstrate that our approach is well-suited for developing reliable reactor models of reaction mixing pumps.