CONTINUOUS-

STIRRED TANK
REACTOR DESIGN
 INTRODUCTION
1. IMPELLER SELECTION
CONCEPTS 2. BAFFLES
3. POWER DISSIPATION
4. RADIUS OF ACTION

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 INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS A CONTINUOUS-STIRRED TANK
REACTOR?
 INTRODUCTION
◦ Continuous stirred-tank reactors (CSTRs) are open
systems, where material is free to enter or exit the
system, that operate on a steady-state basis,
where the conditions in the reactor don't change
with time. Reactants are continuously introduced
into the reactor, while products are continuously
removed.

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 INTRODUCTION
◦ One of the benefits of CSTRs is their isothermicity and
the fact that their mathematical representation is
algebraic, involving no differential equations, thus
making data analysis simpler. For laboratory research
purposes, CSTRs are considered feasible for holding
times of 1 to 4000 s, reactor volumes of 2 to 1000 cm3
(0.122 to 61 in3), and flow rates of 0.1 to 2.0 cm3/s. Fast
reactions and those in the gas phase are generally done
in tubular flow reactors, just as they are often done on
the commercial scale.
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◦ CSTRs consist of a tank, usually of
constant volume, and a stirring system
to mix reactants together. Feed and
exit pipes are present to introduce
reactants and remove products.
Pictured beside is a CSTR that has had
a portion of its side removed to show
the interior. A CSTR can also function as
a loop reactor when a heated,
pressurized fluid is injected into the
system to facilitate the stirring. This
allows for higher heat and mass
transfer rates while simplifying
maintenance because there is no
agitator.
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 1.
IMPELLER
SELECTION
 AGITATION VS MIXING
◦ AGITATION
◦ induced motion of a material in a specified way, usually in
a circulatory pattern inside some sort of container.
◦ It refers to the induced motion of a “homogenous”
material in a specified way
◦ MIXING
◦ random distribution, into and through one another, of two
or more initially separate phases.

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 PURPOSES OF AGITATION
◦ Increase fluid turbulence
◦ Suspending solid particles
◦ Blending miscible liquids
◦ Dispersing a gas through the liquid in the form of small
bubbles
◦ Dispersing a second liquid, immiscible with the first, to form
an emulsion or suspension of fine drops
◦ Promoting heat transfer between the liquid and a coil or
jacket

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 AGITATION EQUIPMENT
◦ Liquids are most often agitated in
some kind of tank or vessel, usually
cylindrical in form and with a
vertical axis.
◦ The proportions of the tank vary
widely, depending on the nature of
the agitation problem.
◦ The impeller creates a flow pattern
in system, causing the liquid to
circulate through the vessel and
return eventually to the impeller.
 AGITATOR SELECTION
◦ Depends on the viscosity of the liquid
◦ For specific time of mixing, the best mixer is the one that
mixes in the required time with the smallest amount of power
◦ There is no necessarily any direct relation between power
consumed and amount or degree of mixing
◦ For mixing reagent in a feed tank or blending product from
different batches in a storage tank, a relatively small size
mixer might be used, even if several minutes are required for
complete mixing.

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 IMPELLERS
◦ rotating devices designed to alter
the flow and/or pressure of
liquids, gases, and vapors
◦ Impellers consist of various
vanes — often blade-shaped —
arranged around a short central
shaft.
◦ When the shaft and vanes rotate,
they suck in fluids or gases and
impel them out the other side

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 IMPELLERS VS PROPELLERS
◦ Propellers commonly refer to devices which move an
attached object.
◦ Impellers, on the other hand, are designed to move the
substance — fluid or gas — passing through it without
moving the object it is attached to.

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 TWO CLASSES OF IMPELLERS
◦ Axial-flow impellers – generate currents
parallel with the axis of the impeller shaft
- suitable for homogenization
and mixing which requires bulk motion.
- Axial flow pitched blade
impellers have one or more paddles.
- They convey pumped media
in the direction along the revolving axis of the
impeller.
- Axial flow impellers are used
at high speeds to promote rapid dispersion and
are used at low speeds for keeping solids in
suspension.
 TWO CLASSES OF IMPELLERS
◦ Radial-flow impellers – generate
currents in a tangential or radial
direction
- which typically
have rectangular vanes — are used
when the tank media is excessively
viscous or consists of
two immiscible materials

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THREE MAIN
TYPES OF
IMPELLERS
 PROPELLER
◦ An axial-flow, high speed impeller for liquids of low viscosity
◦ The flow currents leaving the impeller continue through the liquid in a given direction until
deflected by the floor or wall of the vessel.
◦ The highly turbulent swirling column of liquid leaving the impeller entrains stagnant liquid as it
moves along, probably considerably more than an equivalent column from a stationary nozzle
would.
◦ The propeller blades vigorously cut or shear the liquid.
◦ Because of the persistence of flow currents, propeller agitators are effective in very large vessels.
◦ Propellers rarely exceed 18 inches in diameter regardless of the size of the vessel.
◦ In a deep tank, two or more propellers may be mounted on the same shaft, usually directing the
liquid in the same direction.
◦ Sometimes two propellers work in opposite directions, or in “push-pull” to create a zone of
especially high turbulence between them.

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 PROPELLER
◦ A revolving propeller traces out a helix in the fluid, and if
there were no slip between liquid and propeller, one full
revolution would move the liquid longitudinally a fixed
distance depending on the angle of inclination of the
propeller blades
◦ Pitch – ratio of this distance to the propeller diameter
◦ Square pitch – propeller with a pitch of 1.0
◦ Standard three-bladed marine propellers with
square pitch are most common.

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 TWO CLASSES OF IMPELLERS
◦ Axial-flow impellers – generate currents
parallel with the axis of the impeller shaft
- suitable for homogenization
and mixing which requires bulk motion.
- Axial flow pitched blade
impellers have one or more paddles.
- They convey pumped media
in the direction along the revolving axis of the
impeller.
- Axial flow impellers are used
at high speeds to promote rapid dispersion and
are used at low speeds for keeping solids in
suspension.
 PADDLES
◦ Flat paddle turning on a vertical shaft.
◦ Two-bladed and four-bladed are common.
◦ Sometimes the blades are pitched, more often they are vertical.
◦ Paddles turn at slow to moderate speeds in the center of a vessel. They push the liquid radially
and tangentially with almost no vertical motion at the impeller unless the blades are pitched.
◦ The currents they generate travel outward to the vessel wall and then either upward of
downward.
◦ In deep tanks, several paddles are mounted one above the other on the same shaft.
◦ The total length of a paddle is typically 50-80% of the inside diameter of the vessel.
◦ The width of the blade is 1/6 – 1/10 its length.
◦ At very low speeds, a paddle gives mild agitation in an unbaffled vessel.
◦ At higher speeds, baffles become necessary. Otherwise, the liquid is swirled around the vessel at
high speed but with little mixing.

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 TURBINES
◦ Most of them resemble multibladed paddle agitators with short blades, turning at high speed on
a shaft mounted centrally in the vessel.
◦ Blades may be straight or curved, pitched or vertical.
◦ The diameter of the impeller is smaller than with apddles, ranging from 30-50% of the diameter
vessel.
◦ Effective over a very wide range of viscosities.
◦ In low viscosity liquids, turbines generate strong currents that persist throughout the vessel,
seeking out and destroying stagnant pockets. Near the impeller is a zone or fapid currents, high
turbulence and intense shear.
◦ The principal currents are radial and tangential.
◦ The tangential components induce vortexing and swirling, which must be stopped by baffles or
by a diffuser ring if the impeller is to be most effective.

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TURBINES

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 2.
BAFFLES
o Baffles are flow-directing or obstructing vanes or
panels used in industrial process vessels (tanks),
such as shell and tube heat exchangers, chemical
reactors, and static mixers.
o It is designed to support tubes bundles and direct
the flow of fluids for maximum efficiency.
o Baffles are internals, generally flat plates, used in
agitated vessels to optimize and stabilize the
mixing flow pattern and minimize variation in
agitator power draw.

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 in agitated vessels without baffles swirl and
have surface vortices with little top-to-bottom
vessel turnover. Velocity gradient is minimal.

Baffles establish an axial flow pattern,

minimizing the tangential or swirl component
imparted by the rotation of mixing impellers.
LOW
VISCOSITY The baffled flow pattern facilitates top-to-
bottom bulk motion, increasing the velocity
FLUIDS across heat transfer surfaces and facilitating
blend and solid suspension.

However, top entry on-center-mounted

agitators on a properly baffles vessel draw more
power than on an unbaffled vessel because the
impeller pumps more fluid in a given amount of
time.
 An accurate baffle width statement is: “As
Reynolds number decreases, baffle size
decreases.” Reynolds number, which correlates
well with mixing requirement, is a function of
both the fluid and the mixer/vessel size.

HIGH Re = 10.75 ρND2/µ

VISCOSITY
FLUID Baffle recommendations for mixing non-
Newtonian fluids – such as many food
ingredients, personal care products, resins,
latexes, pulps, clay slurries, etc. - require
consideration of the viscosity at an
appropriately selected shear rate.

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IMPORTANT
FACTORS
1. Solids Wet-out
- Common requirement to add solids at the liquid surface. Solids
can take many forms. Some have a tendency to float; others are
difficult to wet-out, forming air-filled clumps. Fine solids also
may trap air. Typically, the mixer/baffle interaction is designed
to facilitate drawdown, either through vortex creation or a
recirculation loop.
- Usually when solids must be drawn down, a vortex is created
with a down-pumping axial flow impeller and baffles cut off the
height of the impeller.
2. Unusually high or low power intensities
- For higher power intensity reactor agitators, use four baffles. At
loW power intensity, opting for one or two. With two baffles,
spacing at 180º is important. Two baffles in the same quadrant
provide better result than a single baffle.
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3. Glassed Vessels
- Such units traditionally were fitter with one “Beavertail” baffle,
resulting in an under-baffled situation. Advances in glassing
technology have enabled use of multiple baffles similar to those
found in metal vessels.

4. Internal coils, jacket, vertical tubes and flat plate heat transfer
surfaces
- Coil supports and the turns of the coil themselves can act as
baffles. To prevent swirling, reduce baffling as the number of
coil banks increases. It is best to put baffles on the outside of
the coils to maximize flow through the coils.
- With jacketed vessels, use off-wall baffle installation.
- Optimizing the flow patterns over heat transfer surfaces in
agitated vessels necessitates designing a system where these
surfaces, impellers and baffles work together.
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Removal of walls and new
baffles reduced swirl and
improved mixing. This
image shows existing
baffling

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5. Rectangular, horizontal or asymmetric vessels
- Rectangular vessels are partially self-baffling.
Additional baffling occasionally is recommended.
- Horizontal and asymmetric vessels pose unique
challenges.

6. Side-entry mixers
- Don’t use baffles with side entry mixers. Many
applications can benefit from offsets or angle-
mounting configurations.

7. Dip pipes, thermowells, probes

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 3.
POWER
DISSIPATION
◦ Power dissipated by the agitator maybe
computed by:
 FLUIDS
1. BLENDING VEGETABLE APPROX. HP
An estimation of OIL 1. 1.0HP/100,000LBS
typical horsepower 2. BLENDING GASOLINE
for agitators is given 2. .019HP/M3
3. CLAY DISPERSION
(Parker, 1964; 3. 10-12HP/1000GAL
Schlegel, 1972): This 4. FERMENTATION
maybe used to 5. SUSPENSION 4. 3-10HP/1000GAL
approximate power POLYMERIZATION
requirement due to
5. 6-7HP/1000GAL
6. EMULSION
mixing of CSTR. 6. 3-10HP/1000GAL
POLYMERIZATION
7. SOLUTION 7. 15-40HP/1000GAL
POLYMERIZATION

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 4.
RADIUS OF
ACTION
◦ Radius of action of an agitator
should be checked after
reactor, blade and baffle sizes
have been calculated to ensure
there is enough intensity of
mixing inside the reactor, as
this will affect reaction
conversion.
Radius of
Action may
be
calculated
as:
◦ Horizontal radius of action and vertical radius
of action are 50% and 20% respectively of the
computed radius of action.
 To ensure high degree of agitation a linear
speed at blade tip should be greater than 4.
Where tip speed is given by:

Vp = πNDI (m/s)

Another indicator of high degree of agitation is

Power dissipated per unit volume of fluid which
should have at least 1,500 W/m3 value.

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summary of degree of agitation against tip
blade speed and Power per unit volume

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