Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

Aiming at the design and application of mixer-settler in a project with an annual output of 10000 tons of cobalt, CFD numerical simulation was used to analyze the water oil distribution, velocity flow field, mixture dispersion zone, residence time and clarification effect in the mixer-settler, so as to provide theoretical support and verification for the optimization design of the mixer-settler. The simulation results were consistent with the PIV experimental results, which showed that the upper layer of the mixer-settler was laminar flow, and the vortex was easy to form at the bottom near the inlet. Based on the simulation model, the internal structure of the mixer-settler was studied. The results showed that adding a grid plate at the inlet of the mixer-settler can make the mixture form a shunt and enter the mixer-settler at a more uniform speed along the whole vertical plane of the inlet, but it would lead to the deterioration of the clarification and separation effect. In addition, the influences of the depth and aspect ratio of the mixer-settler on the two-phase separation were also studied. When the depth of the clarifier reached 1m, the influences of increasing the depth of the mixer-settler on the clarification rate and effect was limited ; the separation effect of the mixer-settler with small aspect ratio was not good, and it was easy to form a dead zone. The above factors should be taken into account in the design of mixer-settler.