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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Plant Equipment and Operations

Agitator

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

/ˈædʒɪteɪtər/nounCommon term

In chemical engineering, agitator means: A motor-driven shaft with one or more impellers that mixes the contents of a tank or reactor to keep solids suspended, spread heat and help reactions.

In Turkish: karıştırıcı, mikser

How it is used

Used in reactors, blending tanks and crystallizers. Engineers choose the impeller type, speed in rpm and power per volume. Operators check that the agitator is running before dosing, because poor mixing is a common cause of runaway reactions.

Example sentences

  1. Start the agitator before you add the catalyst slurry.

  2. At the larger scale, the agitator speed had to drop to keep the tip speed the same.

Common collocations

  • agitator speed
  • agitator motor
  • agitator failure
  • impeller
  • start the agitator
  • reactorA vessel or piece of equipment where a chemical reaction is carried out under controlled temperature, pressure and mixing.
  • CSTRShort for continuous stirred-tank reactor: a tank with a mixer where feed flows in and product flows out all the time, and the contents are assumed to be perfectly mixed.
  • runaway reactionAn exothermic reaction that gets out of control: heat is produced faster than it can be removed, so temperature, reaction rate and pressure rise faster and faster.
  • scale upTo take a process that works in the lab or a pilot plant and design it to run at a much larger, commercial size.
  • jacketAn outer shell around a reactor or vessel through which steam, hot oil or cooling water flows to heat or cool the contents.

More terms: Plant Equipment and Operations

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