Short bed ion exchange technology utilizes fine mesh resin beads, a fully packed resin bed, and counter-current regeneration. These unique features help to improve exchange kinetics, reduce regenerant consumption and increase the concentration of strip solutions. Commercially, this technology has been extensively used in the following areas: separation and purification of strong mineral acids, removal and recycle of dissolved metals in the surface finishing industries, and production of high purity water.
The most frequent questions concerning short-bed ion exchange relate to flow distribution, because the column is only a few centimeters tall and it has to treat tremendous amount of solution in a short time.
There have been a lot of introductions of the advantages of a short-bed ion exchange column, but no articles on its detailed geometric size and design have been published yet. What is more, no information has been found on the influence of the structure and geometric size of a flow distribution plate on the flow distribution characteristics of the short-bed ion exchange column and on the optimal design based on the influence.
Kim Yong Min, a section head at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, has discussed the influences of several parameters on flow distribution in Recoflo by using CFD program and consequently done some research to design a reasonable flow distribution plate for optimization of ion exchange processes and enhancement of separation efficiency.
The simulation results showed that 60 radial flow channels and 3 circumferential flow channels were the reasonable parameters for ensuring even flow distribution through the bed in the short-bed ion exchange column.
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