Miniaturized Extraction Column with Ceramic Internals

Abstract

in which the amounts of produced goods are rather small. To improve thermal and chemical resistance and widen the operational windows, Lapp Insulators Alumina GmbH and TU Dortmund, Equipment Design, have developed new concepts for small-scale plants with integrated key components made of ceramics. Here, the development of a smallscale extraction column [1] with ceramic components made of Al 2 O 3 , which are produced by 3D printing [2], shall be presented. The column and ceramic stirring elements are shown in the figure together with flow visualization in the stirring cell.The column with an active height of 220 mm was investigated with the EFCE test system n-butyl acetate/acetone/water for fluid dynamics and separation performance. The images in the right side of the figure show the droplet distribution in a single stirred cell with 900 min -1 and two different column loadings. Droplet size distribution was determined for different column loadings with mean diameters ranging from 0.55 to 0.7 mm. Mass transfer and separation efficiency is in the same range as the previously investigated column with metal internals [1] for direction disperse continuous d c and slightly lower for the opposite direction. Further investigations will focus on improved internals and other chemical systems.[1] A. Holbach et al., Chem. Eng. Process.