A new effective combination of a thin-film extractor and gravity setter

Previous and present studies demonstrate that the new thin-film extractor w ith the gravity settler have superior performance over other conventional d evices. This is because the volume of the extractor and the settler are sig nificantly reduced, on the average, by factors of 100 and 10, respectively, for a similar power input. Correlations for a water-iodine-kerosene liquid system developed in the past (Berman and Tamir, 2000) for the mass transfe r and pressure drop were modified by incorporating the ratio R/R, This rati o takes into account the impact of the liquids on the walls of the reactor where R is the radius of the free film and R,is the radius of the reactor. In addition, an equation was proposed, which demonstrates the dependence of the extraction efficiency on the operating parameters. The gravity settler combined with the thin-film extractor was tested thoroughly yielding two c orrelations for estimating its height, i.e. the fluidized-bed and dense-pac ked zones. In the present case the sedimentation zone is absent. A scale up procedure based on the model developed is proposed as well as a principle scheme of a pilot plant based on the new effective combination.