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Particle Agglomeration
Degussa AG
There is considerable interest in the synthesis and the use of non-ionized
particles for a variety of applications. Commodities such as carbon black,
pigmentary titania, fumed silica, and optical fibers for telecommunications
are typical products of industrial aerosol reactors. Particle characteristics
like size and size distribution or the morphology influence the final
product quality.
At the German UGM, Degussa AG presented their recent work with FLUENT
to simulate aerosol synthesis of titania powder by TiCl4 oxidation.
The multiphase capabilities of FLUENT were explored
by Degussa. Here, the agglomeration of TiO2 particles is
modeled using user-defined subroutines. Color shows the total surface
area of particles in a pre-mixed reactor (top) and a double diffusion
reactor (bottom).
Since the characteristics of the product are influenced by the interaction
of fluid mechanics as well as particle dynamics, Degussa combined two
models of these phenomena to simulate the synthesis. A user-defined
subroutine was employed to model the agglomeration of the particles. The
results of the simulation were used to optimize the reactor geometry and
the operating conditions.
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