(491b) Complexities in Simple Mixing

The mixing in many food systems seems quite simple. Many of the relevant processes are single phase Newtonian fluids, designed for a specific mixing time or residence time distribution. Stirred tanks and stirred tanks in series are common vessels for single-phase reactions such as enzymatic modifications. Even these simple cases can show non-intuitive results. We will discuss three such examples: residence time distributions in an unstirred-tank designed to mix feed streams, residence time in a series of CSTRs approximating a plug-flow reactor, and mixing times in a shear-thinning solution.