Fluid flow in turbine-stirred, baffled tanks—III: Dispersion during circulation

Abstract Being the second part of an investigation into the nature of imperfect mixing, this paper discusses the dispersion during the circulation of a tracer pulse, injected into the impeller zone of a turbine-stirred vessel. A model of the imperfect mixer is presented, which shows good agreement with the experimental data over a large range of vessel diameters and impeller diameters. This model contains two parameters, the circulation time and the Bodenstein number; the latter is a dimensionless group characterizing the dispersion during circulation. With this model the conversion rate of a chemical reaction between premixed reactants, occurring in a continuous flow non-perfectly mixed vessel, may be predicted.