HYDRODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF STATIC MIXERS
Continuous production is of increasing interest due to the safety benefits and improved mass transfer in the oil refining industry. However, the complexity of scaling has long limited the use of continuous manufacturing. Recently, a tubular flow reactor equipped with a static mixer appears to be a solution for scaling up a continuous process. Static mixers provide a high level of mixing efficiency, so the formation of by-products can be minimized. They eliminate the need for tanks, agitators, moving parts and direct driving force and achieve high mixing efficiency with low energy consumption. The energy required for mixing is effectively extracted as a pressure drop from fluid flow through the elements. Mixers are always installed in existing systems without compromising the performance of existing pumps. Installation is very easy, no special skills are required other than normal engineering skills, have no moving parts and require little to no maintenance. Static mixers are available in all standard pipe sizes, and in the case of an open channel design, any size without an upper limit is available. The article provides an overview of mixing devices for mixing media, in particular, static mixers by the type of internal mixing element, categories of static mixers are given. This article examines the role of static mixers in the process industry and summarizes the most important developments and literature available on this type of mixer operating in liquid phase systems. In particular, this article highlights the progress made in understanding fluid dynamics using stationary types of mixers. In addition, this article includes a brief overview of the formation of knowledge in the field of static mixing and further discussion of the innovations made in this field.