Document Type

Honors Thesis

Publication Date

Summer 8-7-2026

Abstract

A continuous flow resonant vibratory adsorption swing reactor was designed to facilitate adsorption interactions between biochar and rare earth elements in a slurry or aqueous solution. A continuous mixing vessel can allow operators to run a large quantity of material through the RVM in an automatic manner that requires little supervision. This will save the operators time and allow them to focus on other research tasks. The reactor that was built was designed to bolt into Resodyn Acoustic Mixers’ Lab Resonance Acoustic Mixer-II (LabRAM-II). A design with two stacked stages within the LabRAM-II’s acoustic enclosure was settled on. These stages have a high width-to- height ratio to facilitate material turnover and are curved to facilitate draining. Silicone tubing with attached peristaltic pumps driven by stepper motors move material into the reactor, between the stages, and out of the reactor. There is also a heat exchanger between the stages of the reactor, designed to cool the material being mixed. The reactor went through several design iterations, and the final iteration has a safety factor of 1.5 at 100G of acceleration. This version of the reactor has withstood multiple hours of testing at 70G. It has shown that it can facilitate adsorption interactions with biochar with a P80 of 1.5 mm.

Keywords: Rare Earth Element Extraction, Resonant Vibratory Mixing, Biochar, Adsorption

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