Particle properties of zirconia prepared by supercritical water hydrothermal synthesis using population balance equation

No Persian Abstract

For various precipitation applications, particle properties such as size, length, surface and volume are of primary importance to the product quality. These properties are mainly controlled by a number of occurring phenomena within the reaction equipment mostly the nucleation and the subsequent crystal growth. Mathematical modeling could be employed to achieve these properties, and realize a better understanding of the process, as theoretical identification of properties circumvents numerous experiments and related substantial costs. In this work, based on the population balance in a supercritical water hydrothermal synthesis process for producing fine zirconia, a numerical method was used to predict these properties in the reactive precipitation process. The method of moment was employed for solving the population balance equation. By implementing the model, the reactive precipitation process in a batch reactor including nucleation and growth was simulated. Variations of the zirconia properties with time were obtained. The results showed that due to both primary nucleation and growth, all properties increased with time where supersaturation was high and it then reached a constant value with no supersaturation.