Experimental and Numerical Study on the Residence Time Distribution in a Stirred Membrane Reactor

The residence time distribution (RTD) of a reactor is a key factor related to the actual reaction time of reactants, by which the mixing in a reactor can be judged indirectly. Though many efforts have been made to study RTD in stirred tank reactors (STs) or membrane modules, research on RTD in a stirred membrane reactor (SMR) is still lacking. For this purpose, we investigated the influence of operating conditions on mixing in the SMR through experiments, obtained non-ideal mixing region by mathematical model fitting, and analyzed the flow field combined with CFD simulation. The critical value of the ratio of the discharge of impeller to the flow rate is 13.13 designed to reach ideal mixing in the SMR and that of the ratio of the mean residence time to the mixing time is 10 correspondingly. In addition, the RTD is independent of membrane permeability resistance.