Contact: Simon Paas

Fundng: AiF ZIM

The research project aims to investigate and develop a method for continuous, multidimensional fractionation of suspensions. Competing hydrodynamic and electrophoretic forces are used for the fractionation of ultra-fine particles (dP < 10 µm) in a cross-flow.
During the first funding period, a lab-scale plant was set up for experimental investigation. This will be enhanced in the second funding period to analyze the impact of the operating parameters (flow velocity, local pressure differences and the electric field strength) and the material properties (particle size and shape, chemical composition, electric potential) on the fractionation. The experimental investigations are additionally supported by CFD simulations. These simulations will describe the particle motion in the flow and are used to optimize the operating conditions. On the microscale, coupled CFD-DEM simulations are performed as well to describe the interaction between the particles. The results are included in the overall optimization on the macro scale.