Extraction reactor is a major research area of interest within the field of rare earths extraction and separation.SiC foam offers excellent material characteristics as well as three-dimensional(3-D) reticulated struct...Extraction reactor is a major research area of interest within the field of rare earths extraction and separation.SiC foam offers excellent material characteristics as well as three-dimensional(3-D) reticulated structure;however,very little research has been carried out on its application in extraction reactor so far.In this work,a static mixer reactor based on SiC foam was designed and demonstrated to extract and separate Ce(Ⅲ) and Pr(Ⅲ) from nitric acid media by using 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester(P507) as extractant.The structure-performance relationship between SiC foam and extraction performance was studied by experiment combined with computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation.The experiment data are in good agreement with the simulation results.Contrast experiment by using a Kenics mixer was carried out,and SiC foam shows better extraction and mass transfer performance.Using the optimal structural SiC foam(pore size D=2.3 mm,open porosity ε=85%,foam length L=80 mm),high extraction efficiency η(Pr(Ⅲ):94.6%,Ce(Ⅲ):88.5%) and separation factor β(2.27) between Ce(Ⅲ) and Pr(Ⅲ) is achieved at a high total throughput of 200 mL/min.Besides,overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient K_(L)a of Pr(Ⅲ) and Ce(Ⅲ) are 0.519 and 0.378 s^(−1) at the residence time τ of 3.6 s,respectively,which reach the high level of microchannel reactors and are better than conventional extractors and other static mixers.SiC foam is found to be applicable as a static mixer for efficient and high-throughput extraction and separation of rare earths.展开更多
基金Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFB0310405)。
文摘Extraction reactor is a major research area of interest within the field of rare earths extraction and separation.SiC foam offers excellent material characteristics as well as three-dimensional(3-D) reticulated structure;however,very little research has been carried out on its application in extraction reactor so far.In this work,a static mixer reactor based on SiC foam was designed and demonstrated to extract and separate Ce(Ⅲ) and Pr(Ⅲ) from nitric acid media by using 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester(P507) as extractant.The structure-performance relationship between SiC foam and extraction performance was studied by experiment combined with computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation.The experiment data are in good agreement with the simulation results.Contrast experiment by using a Kenics mixer was carried out,and SiC foam shows better extraction and mass transfer performance.Using the optimal structural SiC foam(pore size D=2.3 mm,open porosity ε=85%,foam length L=80 mm),high extraction efficiency η(Pr(Ⅲ):94.6%,Ce(Ⅲ):88.5%) and separation factor β(2.27) between Ce(Ⅲ) and Pr(Ⅲ) is achieved at a high total throughput of 200 mL/min.Besides,overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient K_(L)a of Pr(Ⅲ) and Ce(Ⅲ) are 0.519 and 0.378 s^(−1) at the residence time τ of 3.6 s,respectively,which reach the high level of microchannel reactors and are better than conventional extractors and other static mixers.SiC foam is found to be applicable as a static mixer for efficient and high-throughput extraction and separation of rare earths.