Shear breakage of nylon membrane microcapsules in a turbine reactor

The breakage of nylon membrane microcapsules is proposed as a new method to study and quantify shear effects in biological systems. A critique of this method shows that a narrower particle size distribution may be an important improvement in the breakage study as well as breakage control in many bioreactor and biotechnological applications. In a turbine reactor, it was shown that the primary process which determines the microcapsule breakage is the shear effect. The breakage kinetics are first order with regard to the microcapsule concentration. The breakage kinetic constant was ob served to be dependent on the temperature and the particle size, and proportional to the average shear rate and the third power of the turbine angular velocity. Decrease of the breakage kinetic constant with temperature can be explained by a decrease of fluid viscosity and a change in nylon membrane properties. An increase in the breakage kinetic constant with the microcapsule diameter can be due to a lowering of internal pressure and a reduction of the membrane resistance with size. Proportionality between the breakage kinetic constant and the shear rate shows that shear is the main process which leads to microcapsule breakage. The additional intervention in the shear rate expression of the turbine angular speed in the form of the turbine and particle velocities, results in the dependence of the breakage kinetic constant on the third power of the angular velocity.