CONSTRUCTION OF A PILOT MOTORIZED MIXER. A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPICS ON CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
ABSTRACT
A motorized mixer of 200 liters capacity was constructed to have the capability of mixing 200 liters of fluid during operation.
The construction of the mixer involves the preliminary measures and calculations on the surface area of the metal sheet. Some basic workshop practices was carried out during the construction such as the marking out of the metal sheet, cutting of different sizes of the sheet, welding of the prints, assembling of the components parts and painting of the equipment.
The material used in the construction of the mixer is mainly of mid steel. The mild steel was used for the construction due to its quality cost availability and characteristics.
The cost of constructing the motorized mixer was cheep due to the choice of material selected for the constructional project and it was finally painted with aluminum paint to protect it form corrosion.
The material dimension used in construction of the motorized mixer is as follows:
Length of vessel 700mm
Diameter of vessel 600mm
Length of shaft 800mm
Surface area of plastic vessel 1320000mm
Electric motor rating 733.3v 50/60HZ, 3728.5 watt
7000r pm
CHAPTER ONE
MOTORIZED MIXER OF 200-LITER CAPACITY
INTRODUCTION
Mixers are equipments used to prepare a uniform combination of two or more substances. Its aim is to obtain a desired degree of mixing in which the product in the mixer may be homogenous or heterogeneous. The mixing or blending of liquid substances depends on the creation of flow current which transports unmixed materials to the mixing zone adjacent to the impellers.
The motorized mixer consists of different parts which makes up its body, they are:
a. The shaft
b. The impellers, which are usually in the form of flat blade turbine type, either centrally located in the vessel or nearer to the bottom entry of the required material. They are also in axial flow or radial flow depending on the angle which the blade makes with the plane of the impeller rotation.
c. A vessel or tank, in which the degree of uniformity or homogeneity operation is carried out; depending on the material involved such as solid and liquid or required and gas.
d. It also has a motor, which is of about 5 horse power, that helps in rotation of the shaft; connected with a belt.
Mixting is an important unit operation where one substance is made to completely intermingled with another; like in saponification where a caustic soda is mixed with groundnut oil or palm kernel oil in order to have a homogenous mixture in soap production.
The mixing process depends on the effective agitation used during the operation.
Agitation refers to the induced motion of a material in a specified way, usually in a circulatory patter, inside a vessel or container, and mixing is the random distribution into and through one another of two or more initially separated phases.
A single homogenous material, such as a thankful of cold water can be agitation but it can not be mixed until some other materials such as quantity of hot water or some powdered solid is added to it.
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