Investigation of the effects of tray downcomer design on the efficiency of a vibrating plate extractor

Abstract

The effectiveness of different tray designs was studied in liquid-liquid extraction using a vibrating plate extraction (VPE) column. The effect of these tray designs and agitation levels on the dispersed phase holdup, drop size distribution and Sauter mean diameter was investigated. Two different sieve tray designs (Type 1 – cylindrical downcomers and Type 2 – straight segment downcomer) were tested. It was found that the Type 1 was more efficient than Type 2. It had a higher dispersed phase holdup and lower Sauter mean diameter with the highest percentage of solute being extracted (95.05%).