Oksana Dmitrieva, KNRTU Assistant Professor of the Department of Food Production Equipment together with Andrei Dmitriev, KSPEU Head of the Department of Heat Engineering and Vadim Zinnurov, a postgraduate student of the same department have implemented a multivortex classifier into the technological line of the Salavat Catalyst Plant (Russia, Bashkortostan) which is producing fine-dispersed silica gel.

“The powder is an adsorbent, which is used for drying and purifying medium ready to decomposition and polymerization, natural gas stripping at the gas treatment units for transportation and other purposes. Nowadays, there is a great demand for high-quality silica gel. Around 50 thousand tons per year is imported from other countries. Salavat Catalyst Plant is one of the largest producer of high-quality silica-gel in Russia” – said Oksana Dmitrieva.

The developed multivortex classifier allows to effectively absorb particles with the size of more than 40 microns, which are subsequently re-crushed and allows to pass almost all the particles with the size of under 40 microns. Then the final product is captured in the battery cyclone.

The research on improving the selectivity of the multivortex classifier is constantly being improved.