8. Conclusion

Knowledge of all the fundamental concepts of the unit operation "agitation/mixing", presented in this article, enables us, for a given agitation/mixing operation, to choose the optimum tank-agitator pairing and to calculate the agitator rotation speed, from which we can deduce the overall values (at agitator tank level) of the other operating parameters.

Recent developments in experimental and numerical tools (Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes) should provide access to local information on the hydrodynamics of agitated tanks, enabling local phenomena to be better described and linked with classical global approaches. This should facilitate extrapolation from pilot to industrial scale.