(554c) On-Line Measurement and Power Consumption on Gas-Liquid Agitated Systems

In some industrial processes there is the necessity of exhausting a gaseous component in a liquid phase, particularly, in processes that involve aerobic fermentation for production of bioproducts as: agricultural inoculantes, recombinant proteins, antibiotic, vaccines, biopolymmers and others. Through the dispersion of this gaseous component,often the oxygen, one knows that a reduction in the apparent density of the liquid occurs, and it leads to a reduction in the power consumption that is transmitted in comparison to the ungassed liquid. From the on-line measurement of the power effectively transferred to the fluid, made possible for the use of strain-gauges, the present work has as objective to quantify this phenomenon of the power reduction, under different conditions of agitation and aeration. The quantification of the power effectively transferred to the fluid is very important as a parameter for the magnifying of scale of biotechnological processes, that allows transforming an optimized project into laboratory scale, in something with industrial applicability. From the instrumentation of the axis of benches tank of 10L owned by the Institute for Technological Research of State of São Paulo S.A. (IPT), it was built collection of data of power effectively transferred to the fluid. One expects that this study can provide a method of great utility in the forecast of power of agitated tanks and gassed, through the equations that will be offer.