Developments in Precipitation Engineering for the Process Intensification in the Environmental Protection and Other Purification Industrial Activities

The realization of a precipitation process for the elimination of a harmful compound by the classical way needs a very large reactor volume due to low or very low concentrations of this compound. The paper shows some principal methods for the drastic decrease in precipitator volume based on the recycling and/or in situ separation of the solid phase. From simultaneous population and mass balances, some quantitative relations are obtained to estimate the reactor volume saving. The proposed methods can be used to realize low cost modifications of the existing plants in order to increase their capacity or to design new plants having reduced dimensions.