CHARACTERIZATION

OF SOLIDS

DR. WAQAS CHEEMA

 CONTENTS

1 History & Types of Unit Operations

2 Importance of Unit Operations in CPI

3 Objectives of Unit Operations

4 Characterization of Solids

2
 HISTORY OF
UNIT OPERATIONS
 UNIT OPERATIONS

 The "unit operations" concept had been latent in the

chemical engineering profession
 Ever since George Davis had organized his
original 12 lectures around the topic.
 It was Arthur Little who first recognized the
potential of using “Unit Operations" to separate
chemical engineering from other professions
 Chemical Engineers, had concentrated upon the
underlying processes common to all chemical
products, reactions, and machinery.

4
 WAY TOWARDS
“UNIT OPERATIONS”

 Chemical Engineering was tailored to fulfill the

needs of the chemical industry which was mostly
based on petroleum derived feedstock's.
 Competition between manufacturers was brutal, and
all strove to be the "low cost producer."

5
 UNIT OPERATIONS

 The "unit operations" repeatedly found

their way into industrial practice, and
became a convenient manner of organizing
chemical engineering knowledge.
 Additionally, the knowledge gained
concerning a "unit operation" governing
one set of materials can easily be applied to
others

6
 TYPES OF
UNIT OPERATIONS
TYPES OF UNIT OPERATIONS

Unit Operations

Fluid Dynamics Mixing

Heat Transfer Classification
Evaporation Fluidization
Humidification Filtration
Gas absorption Screening
Solvent Extraction Crystallization
Adsorption Centrifugation
Distillation Comminution
Drying Materials handling
8
 OBECTIVES OF
UNIT OPERATIONS
 OBJECTIVES
OF UNIT OPERATIONS
Increment in
Rate of Reaction Ease in transportation

Easy material
Economize in Objectives handling
Growth

Segregates well Homogenize in lesser time

10
CHARACTERIZATION OF
SOLIDS
GENERAL CHARACTERIZATIONS

Individual solid particles are characterized by their

1. Size Regular and irregular

2. Shape Regular and irregular
3. Density Homogeneous and composite solids

12
 PARTICLE SHAPE (1-1)
Sphericity :
the surface area of a sphere of the same volume as the
particle divided by the actual surface area of the particle:

6 / Dp
S 
s p / p
Where Dp = nominal diameter of particle
sp = surface area of one particle
p = volume of one particle

13
 PARTICLE SHAPE (1-2)

 Nominal Diameter is approximated from Screen

Analysis
 Sphericity of sphere is 1
 Sphericity of crushed particles ranges 0.6 ~ 0.8.
 Due to Abrasion, the particles have high sphericity
of somewhat 0.95

14
 PARTICLE SIZE (1-1)

 Diameter may be specified for any equidimensional

particles
 If not then the second longest major dimension
should be characterized
 For needle like particles, Dp would refer to the
thickness of the particle, not their length
 Units usually refer to size of the particles

15
 PARTICLE SIZE (1-2)

0.10---0.17 0.00 --- 0.15 0.15---0.25 0.25---0.40 0.40---0.60 0.60---1.00

16
 PARTICLE SIZE (1-3)

 Coarse Particles ( inch / mm )

 Intermediate Particles ( mm / inch )
 Fine Particles ( screen size / mesh # )
 Very-fine Particles ( ųm / nm )
 Ultra-fine Particles ( m2 / g )

17
Thank you.
Questions?