CRYSTALLIZATION AND PRECIPITATION ENGINEERING .3. A DISCRETE FORMULATION OF THE AGGLOMERATION RATE OF CRYSTALS IN A CRYSTALLIZATION PROCESS

An expression relying on fluid mechanical and phenomenological considerations is proposed for the agglomeration rate of adipic acid crystals during their crystallization in a mechanically stirred crystallizer. This expression accounts for the influence of particle concentration, supersaturation, power dissipation per unit mass, size of crystallizer and size of agglomerating crystals. The formation is adapted to the discretization method of the CSD into granulometric classes which was presented in a previous paper of this series. It is shown that crystal size strongly influences the agglomeration rate. The model involves one single free parameter for the agglomeration rate and can easily be applied to other agglomeration processes occurring in the supermicronic range during crystallization. © 1990.