The Spring 2010 ANC team is continuing research with lime feeders where the Fall 2009 team left off. The original idea is that by placing a slanted tube on top of a vertical one and running water upwards through the reactor, one can maintain a fluidized bed of lime particles in the lower segment but prevent solid lime from leaving with the effluent.(see 2009 design). This semester the team modified the reactor design in order to improve its performance and provide an easy way to feed lime while the reactor is running. (see new lime feeder design)
In the following experimental set-up with both new apparatus(A2) and old one(A1), the team tried to design a series of experiments in order to determine all the possible parameters which may influence the lime feeder's performance, all those parameters were based on Spring 2010 team's hypothesis (see hypothesis). In addition, from previous ANC team's proposal, it's very important to set comparison experiment to test each parameter separately, so the new team did all the experiments with a single comparable parameter as the principle in experimental set-up.
Based on the team's experimental set-up, (number) comparison experiments had been carried on, the results and analysis is shown in each experiment.
Experiment 1: Minimum amount of lime input in two systems
Experiment 2: Tap water versus distilled water in A2 system
Experiment 3: Contious lime input under A2 systems' full capacity
From the experimental observation and results analysis, the Spring 2010 team proposed several suggestions on how to possibly improve the design in the future, and studied the feasibility of implementing the design in Aguaclara plant. (see future challenges)