Mixing, Diffusion, and Chemical Reaction in a Single Screw Extruder

The factors influencing the performance of a single screw extruder as a reactor are investigated. The simultaneous interactions between mechanical mixing, molecular diffusion, and chemical reaction are described in terms of a lamellar mixing model. The effect of mixing is incorporated through the convective term in the Lagrangian mass conservation equations for the chemical species; the velocity being related locally to the specific rate of deformation of material elements convected by the macroscopic flow.