As a senior developer working with spray nozzles for injecting additives into gas flows or other liquids, there are several important engineering considerations to keep in mind. Typically, only small amounts of additives need to be sprayed, but complete mixing must occur quickly.
Choosing the right nozzles for injection applications involves careful consideration of factors such as flow rate, pressure, and spray pattern. Utilizing sprays instead of liquid showers allows for more precise control of the heating and cooling stages. The nozzles help to greatly increase the surface area of the fluid and enhance heat transfer, resulting in less energy wastage and improved system efficiency.
Challenges with Spraying Thick Liquids
Many greases are thick and this can present spraying difficulties. Specifically, if using air atomizing nozzles, the activity of the air on a thick liquid can cause clogging issues. Utilizing external mix variations, where the air is mixed with the liquid after exit from the nozzle, will help moderate this issue.
Considerations for Spray Infusion Applications
If a liquid is sprayed into another liquid or gas, blending will happen over time naturally. However, the more evenly dispersed the spray is and the better the spray, the faster this blending will happen. In a moving liquid stream, complete blending may be needed by a specific point further downstream. This effectively puts a time limit on when the infused liquid needs to have full scattered by. Effective nozzle choice can help ensure fast, efficient blending. The point of the spray pattern may need to be changed, or the consistency of the spray. Often, better sprays can achieve the necessary blending and reaction for the smaller volumes of added substance.
Low Volume Spray Infusion
If only small amounts of an added substance need to be infused, the flow rates should be kept low. To achieve fast blending at low flow rates, a finely atomized spray will be required. Generally, fine atomization requires high pressure and considerably higher flow rates.
Adapting Spray Infusion Nozzles to Antagonistic Conditions
Frequently, liquids need to be infused into a moving gas or chemical stream. This can be hot, corrosive, or both. As such, thought should be given to the materials the infusion nozzle is made from. Synergy produces numerous nozzles in an assortment of heat and corrosion-resistant materials.
Nozzles for Spray Infusion – Infusing into Liquids or Gases?
Whether the added substance is being sprayed into a liquid or gas flow will influence the choice of the nozzle. In a liquid flow, any nozzle that delivers its spray pattern by impinging the added substance fluid on the surface after exit from the hole will be unsatisfactory for infusion purposes. This means that both twisting and impingement nozzle designs will fail to produce a spray pattern when immersed in the fluid.
