Dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether (DME), using clinoptilolite-zeolite as the reaction catalyst, within the temperature range of 300-350 °C has been studied in a continuous fluidized bed reactor. The reactor was a cylindrical tube, 26 mm internal diameter and 0.5 m high, placed vertically in a furnace. The effects of some pertinent operating parameters, such as temperature, superficial gas velocity, catalyst’s particle size, and methanol partial pressure, on the extent of dehydration reaction have been investigated. Two hydrodynamic models presented for bubbling fluidized bed reactors, i.e., Kunii - Levenspiel (K-L) as an example of three phase models and El-Halwagi - El-Rifai (H-R) as an example of compartment models were applied to correlate the experimental data. It was determined that the mean absolute deviation between the experimental data and those predicted from K-L model was lower than that observed in the case of H-R model (19% and 70%, respectively). Among the operating parameters, partial pressure of methanol was found to have the highest impact on the process yield.
The extraction of copper from aqueous sulfate solution with new extractant Cupromex-3302 (active substance is the 5-nonylsalicylaldoxime) using a rotating disc contactor (RDC) was investigated. It was observed from batch experiments that the best results were obtained with the initial aqueous pH and concentration of Cupromex-3302 of 1.9 and 10% (v/v) respectively. In continuous experiments, the first critical rotor speed based on drop breakage probabilities was determined. Then the effects of rotor speed, dispersed and continuous phase flow rates on hydrodynamic parameters such as static hold-up, mean drop sizes and extraction efficiency were studied. The experimental results were compared with the ones obtained by the empirical correlations for prediction of the dispersed phase static hold-up and mean drop sizes in terms of the operating variables and the physical properties. The results of experiments proved the feasibility of operating the solvent extraction of copper from the aqueous solution using rotating disc contactor.
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