(193b) Experimental Investigation of Non-Newtonian Mixing with the Maxblend Impeller

The Maxblend impeller belongs to the new class of wide impellers introduced recently to improve the mixing performance in reactors from the laminar to the turbulent regime. This technology finds many interesting applications in industry, including polymerization where the viscosity in the bulk may change by several orders of magnitude over the course of the reaction while developing non-Newtonian properties.

Experimental investigations have been carried out to characterize the mixing hydrodynamics for viscous fluids in a vessel provided with a Maxblend impeller. The objective was to assess the flow characteristics, the top-to-bottom pumping patterns as well as the shear action imparted by the impeller. The work was carried out at 3 different scales (50, 100 and 200L) viscous Newtonian and non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluids in the laminar and lower transition mixing regimes.

In the presentation, a thorough analysis of the performance of the Maxblend impeller will be presented, showing the strong potential of this mixing technology for viscous fluids exhibiting complex rheology.