Helipump has discovered a new technology for contacting liquid and fine particle slurry countercurrently. High mass transfer and simple equipment make the technology attractive for continuous adsorptive separation of liquids. Present technology simulates countercurrent plug flow of solid against liquid by cyclically moving feeds and outlets along a stationary packed bed. This method is limited by slow, complicated equipment, and by mass transfer (>100 micron diameter particles must be used to avoid excessive pressure drop in the packed bed). The proposed process will use a countercurrent cascade of newly developed particle fluidizers to contact liquid with a dense slurry of fine adsorbent particles. Equipment will be simple and inexpensive, even when a large number of stages is used. Smaller particle size (<20 microns) will allow at 25 to 100 times faster mass transfer. Such a process will offer an order of magnitude lower capital and operating costs due to simplicity and miniatunzation. Research is proposed to determine the feasibility, limitations, and important characteristics of the new process. Experiment will show the ability of 33 the fluidizer to concentrate adsorbent particle slurry and will determine the effectiveness of the liquid-adsorbent contacting. A computer model which uses the expenmental data will be developed to study the process as a whole.Anticipated Results and
Potential Commercial Applications: The benefits of the fluidized adsorption process will be simplification and miniaturization of adsorptive separation. The process will be applied in two ways: as a better way to perform chemical separations and as a method of handling new separation needs created by new techniques.
