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Jet aeration loop reactors are widely used in the chemical industry due to their high mixing intensity, possibility of significant saturation of medium with gases, and simplicity of scaling the processes when passing from laboratory equipment to industrial designs. However, to ensure the necessary amount of air in standard jet aeration schemes with ejectors, high pressure of the medium (up to 6 bars) is required in the reactor loop. This paper presents a newly developed scheme of jet aeration, based on mixing the pressure flows of medium and air supplied to the ejector by individual blowers. Experiment results of the new water aeration scheme showed that, for the formation of suspended matter in the ejector with an air content of 2–20 l per 1 l of water, a pressure of 0.3 bar in the reactor loop at an air pressure of 1 bar is sufficient. This allows usage of low-pressure pump and compressor, which form the basis for the energy consumption reduction and creates prerequisites for lowering the shear loads on a crop. The medium aeration rate during experiments was 0.220–0.266 vvm. It was found that, for each mode of joint operation of pump and compressor, it is possible to maintain a constant aeration rate, which is not significantly affected by the flowrate regulation of medium in loop.

The experimental investigations carried out in field production conditions have proved that the process of cleaning potato tubers from extraneous material with the use of a spiral separator takes place due to the active conveyance of the heap by the turns of the cantilever mounted cleaning spiral springs. The cleaning spiral springs not only rotate at the set angular velocity, but simultaneously their cantilevered ends perform oscillatory motion, which arises due to the deflection of their longitudinal axes under the action of the weight of the potato heap fed into the work zone of the separator. The results obtained in the process of the field experiment investigations carried out by the authors have provided for obtaining the relations that enable selecting the optimum design and kinematic parameters of the spiral-type potato cleaning devices for the targeted separation rate and, accordingly, estimating their impact on the quality of the performed work process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]