Mathematical Model of a Continuous Rotary Furnace for the Calcination of TiO2.

A mathematical model for a TiO//2 calciner has been developed on the basis of experimental data, literature information and plant knowledge. The main feature of this model is that the material and energy balance equations describing the kiln operation are written in finite form, for each of a suitable number of well mixed cells into which the kiln itself is subdivided. In this way the problem reduces to the simultaneous solution of a relatively large set of nonlinear algebraic equations having sparse coefficient matrices. The computed results, in qualitatively good agreement with experimental data, show that the proposed method of solution is numerically very stable and insensitive to the number of well mixed cells considered, provided they are not larger than roughly 5% of total kiln length.