PARAMETRIC STUDY OF AGITATOR IN TiO2 PRECIPITATION TANK USING MULTIPHASE COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTS

Abstract

The production of high-quality white pigment in the sulfate process heavily relies on the formation of titanium dioxide particles of anatase. Uniformity of the TiO₂ particle is a crucial factor in determining the quality of the final products, which can be improved by maximizing the mixing rate in the precipitation tank. This uniformity is also essential to the efficiency of the subsequent Moore filtration process, which directly affects the production capacity of the plant. To investigate the impact of different blade shapes on a precipitation tank, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and lab-scale tests were utilized. After analyzing the design parameters' impact on overall performance, the study conducted a field test using both standard and optimized blades. Transmission electron microscopy was employed to compare the particle size distribution between the two types of agitators. The study concludes that the CFD multiphase simulation developed in this research can be effectively applied to improve the precipitation process.