This paper presents a comparison of the blending efficiency of eight high-speed rotary impellers in a fully baffled cylindrical vessel under the turbulent flow regime of agitated charge. Results of carried out experiments (blending time and impeller power input) confirm that the down pumping axial flow impellers exhibit better blending efficiency than the high-speed rotary impellers with prevailing radial discharge flow. It follows from presented results that, especially for large scale industrial realisations, the axial flow impellers with profiled blades bring maximum energy savings in comparison with the standard impellers with inclined flat blades (pitched blade impellers).

This paper deals with the effect of impeller shape on off-bottom particle suspension. On the basis of numerous suspension measurements, correlations are proposed for calculating the just-suspended impeller speed for a standard pitched four-blade turbine and three types of hydrofoil impellers produced by TECHMIX for several particle sizes and for a wide range of particle concentrations. The suspension efficiency of the tested impellers is compared with the efficiency of a standard pitched blade turbine on the basis of the power consumption required for off-bottom suspension of solid particles. It is shown that the standard pitched blade turbine needs highest power consumption, i.e. it exhibits less efficiency for particle suspension than hydrofoil impellers produced by TECHMIX.