Mechanical Unit Operations

A Teaching Material Prepared For 3rd Year Industrial

Chemistry Students
By:
Moges Admasie
(Lecturer In Industrial Chemistry)
4/20/2023 By: Moges Admasie 1
 Outlines
Particle Technology
 Introduction
 Particle size and shape
 Mixture of particle and size distribution
Objectives nd
After completing this lesson students should be able to:
 Demonstrate understanding of various method involved in determining
particle size and shape.
 Explain the importance of particle size analysis and its application.
 Differentiate between the different models used for predicting particle size.

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 Introduction
 As the name suggests Mechanical Unit operations are those unit operations
that involve physically changing a material.
 Although this generally refers to a change in size (reduction or enlargement)
or shape.
 Mechanical operations also include separation of material on the basis of
physical/mechanical properties like density, size, wettability, etc.
 Mechanical unit operations can be categorized into three operations:
 Operations involving particulate solids;
 Crushing, grinding, sieving, compaction, cutting, storage and transports
 Operations involving solid-fluid;
 Filtration, sedimentation, floatation, cyclone separation etc..
 Operations involving fluid systems
 Distillation, evaporation, liquid-liquid extraction etc.

 Anything that involves only physical change is called mechanical unit

operation
 For example: drying, evaporation, sieving, size reduction, separation etc. are mechanical unit
operations.
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 Particle Technology
 Solids in general are more difficult to handle than liquids or gasses. Why?

In processing, solids appear in a variety of forms such as:

Angular pieces
Continuous sheets
Finely divided powders
They may be:
Toughand
Tough andrubbery
rubbery
Soft or fragile
Dusty
Cohesive
Free flowing or sticky.

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 Characterization of solid particles
 An understanding of the characteristics of masses of particulate solids is
necessary in designing processes and equipment for dealing with streams
containing such solids (powders).
 Individual solid particles are characterized by their size, shape and density.
 Particles of homogeneous solids have the same density as the bulk
material.
 Particles obtained by breaking up a composite solid have various
densities, usually different from the density of the bulk material.
 Sizes and shapes are easily specified for regular particles, such as spheres
and cubes, but for irregular particles (such as sand, grains or mica flakes),
the terms sizes and shape are not clear and must be arbitrarily defined.
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 Particle size and shape
 Particles Shape
 The shape of an individual particles is conveniently expressed in terms of
sphericity, which is independent of particle size.
 For a spherical particle of diameter Dp, = 1.
For a non spherical particle, the sphericity is defined by the relation.

 The equivalent diameter is sometimes defined as the diameter of a sphere

of equal volume.
 For fine granular materials, however, it is difficult to determine the exact
volume and surface area of a particle and Dp is usually taken to be the
nominal size based on screen analysis or microscopic examination.
 Particle size and shape
 For many crushed materials, is b/n 0.6 & 0.8.

 But for particles rounded by abrasion, may be as high as 0.95.

 Hence the value of sphericity is fractional or unity for sphere

Particle shape Sphericity Examples

Spherical 1 Glass beads

Rounded 0.82 Water worn solids

Cubic 0.806 Sugar

Angular 0.66 Crushed materials

Flaky (minute of flattened body ) 0.54 Gypsum

Platelet (disk shaped) 0.22 Clay, mica, graphite
 Particle size and shape
 Particle Size
 In general, diameters may be specified for any equidimensional particle.
 Particles that are not equidimensional, i.e. that are longer in one direction
than in others, are often characterized by the second longest major
dimensions.
 For needlelike particles, for example, diameter of the particle (Dp) would
refer to the thickness of the particles, not their length.
 By convention, particle size are expressed in different units depending on
the size range involved.
 Coarse particles are measured in inches or millimeters;
 Fine particles in terms of screen size;
 Very fine/Ultrafine particles in micrometers or nanometers.
 Mixture of particle and size distribution/size analysis

 In a sample of uniform particles of diameter Dp the total volume of the

particles is m/ρp
 Where: m=the total mass of the sample
ρp= the density of the particles
The number of particles in the sample N is:
The volume of one particles

The total surface area of the particles is:

 Mixture of particle and size distribution/size analysis
Specific Surface Area of A Mixture
 If the particle density ρp & sphericity are known, the surface area of the particles
in each fractions may be calculated from previous equation and the results will be
added to give Aw (the specific surface area).
 The specific surface area (Aw) refers to the total area of a unit mass material.
 The unit is m2/g. Usually refers to the specific surface area of solid materials, such
as powders, fibers, particles, flakes, blocks and other materials.
 The relationship between specific surface area and particle size is generally
speaking, the smaller the particle size, the larger the specific surface area.
 Mixture of particle and size distribution/size analysis
Average Size For A Mixture of Particles
 The average particle size for a mixture of particles is defined in several
different ways.

 Volume-Surface Mean Diameter ( ): The surface mean diameter is important

when considering surface coatings with chemicals, particle agglomeration and
dewatering.
 This is the most used way of determining the average size of mixture of
particles, which can be defined as:

Substituting Aw:

 If the number of particles in each fraction Ni is known instead of the mass

fraction, is given by:
 Mixture of particle and size distribution/size analysis
Average Size For A Mixture of Particles
 The Arithmetic Mean Diameter (DN) is the average of the diameters of all
the particles in the sample, defined as:

Where, NT is the number of particles in the entire sample.

 The Mass Mean Diameter:- The diameter of a particle with a mass equal to the
mean mass of all the particles in the population which can be found from:

 The Volume Mean Diameter:- The mean particle size by volume is important when
dealing with topics such as material transport, storage and hindered particle settling velocities.
It can be found from:

 For samples consisting of uniform particles all the above average diameter are the same:
 For mixture containing particles of various sizes, the above several diameters may differ
from one another.
 Mixture of particle and size distribution/size analysis
Number Of Particles In Mixtures
 For a given particle shape, the volume of any particles is proportional to
its diameter.

 Where a is the volume shape factor. defined as the ratio of the volume of a
particle and a cube with sides equal to the particle diameter
 Assuming a is independent of size and Nw is the total population in one
mass unit of sample, is obtained by summation over all the fractions:
 Screen Analysis
Standard screens are used to measure
the size (and size distribution) of
particles in the size range b/n about
76mm & 38 µm.
Testing sieves are made of woven wire
screen, the mesh and dimensions of
which are carefully standardize.
The openings are square.
Each screen is identified in meshes per
inch.
The area of the openings in any one
screen in the series is exactly twice
that of the openings in the next
smaller screen.
Screen Analysis
Example-1
1. Determine the volume-surface mean diameter, mass mean diameter, and volume
mean diameter of wheat flour by differential analysis using the data given in the following
table.
Example-2 Home Work
 END OF CHAPTER ONE

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