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Poster Presentation 3-10
Measurement of Rheological Properties of Corn Stover Suspensions
Natalia V. Pimenova and Thomas R. Hanley
Department of Chemical Engineering University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky 40292
Telephone: (502) 852-6281; Fax: (502) 852-7033; E-mail: trhanl01@gwise.louisville.edu
Corn stover is currently being evaluated as a feedstock for ethanol production. The corn stover slurries fed to reactors typically range between 10 to 40 percent solids. In order to simulate and design bioreactors for processing highly loaded corn stover slurries, the rheological properties of the suspension must be measured. In systems with suspended solids, rheological measurements are difficult to perform due to settling in the measurement devices.
In this study viscosities of corn stover slurries were measured using both a concentric cylinder viscometer and a helical ribbon impeller viscometer. A calibration procedure is required for the impeller method in order to obtain the shear rate constant, k, which is dependent on the geometry of the measurement system. The results of the two viscosimeters are compared for a range of concentrations and shear rates typical in a stirred tank reactor.
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