Choosing the equipment to suit your process is very easy once the Prosonix technology team have understood your problems and requirements:

Power requirements and throughput capabilities of the Prosonitron technology are strongly linked to the type of process to be performed. Nucleation typically requires only modest amounts of specific energy input to drive the process and may be applied continuously or periodically during the processing. Requirements for a typical process are in the range of 0.5 kJ/L to 10 kJ/L.

Particle modification, such as milling or rounding, generally requires higher specific energy input that should be applied continuously. Typical requirements for these processes lie in the region of 10 kJ/litre to 100 kJ/L.  

For pre-pilot laboratory scale development the Sonolab SL250 offers the opportunity to test the same processing environment of the Prosonitron technology, but at a reduced scale. This system, shown left, is based around a single row of 7 transducers bonded to a 6” nominal bore pipe. The equipment can be supplied with a range of connecting adaptors and is ideally suited to use with batch vessels of up to 50 L volume.

Scale-up from the SL250 to the P500 HD or P750 HD can be achieved with confidence as the geometry and intensity of the ultrasonic environment is maintained during the scale-up process. Throughput capabilities of a single P500 HD would be in the region of 200 to 4000 L/hr for nucleation process and 20 to 200 L/hr for a particle milling process and is therefore ideally suited to a small pilot scale facility.

For larger production scale facilities multiple P750 HD cells would be recommended. A typical configuration incorporating 4 x P750 HD cells would have a throughput capability of up to 50 m³/hr for a nucleation process and up to 2 m³/hr for a particle milling process.

Due to the potential heat effects of high specific power inputs used in milling and rounding applications, energy input is usually split into manageable doses to allow heat to be removed through appropriate equipment such as in-line heat exchangers or recirculation through a temperature controlled batch vessel. Typical specific energy input per pass would be at most a few kJ/L. In the case of processing slurries, residence time inside the cell also has to be controlled to ensure settling out of the material is avoided.

Residence time within the flow cell is usually in the region of a few seconds to a few tens of seconds. For large scale mineral processing Prosonix has developed and built multiple-Prosonitron equipment as shown left, where 8 x 20L flow-cells in series, operating at around 5 kW, is continuously processing 70 m³ of 70^oC caustic liquor each and every hour and has been doing so since 2006. True equipment longevity!