Experimental and CFD study on influence of viscosity on layer melt crystallization

• Layer melt crystallization of aqueous sucrose solutions with different viscosities. Viscosity influence on freezing based ice crystal yield and purity results. CFD study heat transfer inside crystallizer prior to crystallization. Temperature distributions thermal boundary layers undercooled solutions. In the present work, solution viscosity growth kinetics purification efficiency in layer was investigated. Melt experiments were conducted for three types as they are ideal a relatively wide range can be investigated moderate change points. The 10 wt%, 23 30 wt% have dynamic value 2.01 mPas, 4.74 7.21 mPas at their respective points −0.63 °C, −1.78 −2.64 °C. temperature distribution predicted by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations run COMSOL Multiphysics 5.6 software. Experimental results showed that higher caused impurity lower yields static cooling process supersaturation region is wider less concentrated proceeds more rapidly. Hence, gradients obtained follow theory, i.e., thinner layer, faster transfer.