Experimental study of power consumption, local characteristics distributions and homogenization energy in gas–liquid stirred tank reactors

In this paper, the power consumption, the vertical local void fraction and the local gas–liquid interfacial area are investigated in the aerated stirred tank reactors(STRs) equipped with a rigid-flexible impeller. Meanwhile, the regressive correlation based on power consumption and interfacial area is proposed. Then a novel homogenization energy(HE = RSDPtm) expression based on power consumption and local interfacial area is redefined and used to indicate the mixing efficiency. The optimal operating mode is selected based on the change of the HE value. This paper can provide research ideas for structural optimization of stirred reactors.

Electrochemical oxidation of recalcitrant organic compounds in biologically treated municipal solid waste leachate in a flow reactor

Biologically-treated municipal solid waste （MSW） leachate still contains many kinds of bit-recalcitrant organic matter. A new plate and frame electrochemical reactor was designed to treat these materials under flow conditions. In the electrochemical oxidation process, NH3 and color could be easily removed by means of electro-generated chlorinefaypochlorite within 20 min. The effects of major process parameters on the removal of organic pollutants were investigated systematically. Under experimental conditions, the optimum operation parameters were current density of 65 mA/cm^2, flow velocity of 2.6 cm/sec in electrode gap, and initial chloride ion concentration of 5000 mg/L. The COD in the leachate could be reduced below 100 mg/L after 1 hr of treatment. The kinetics and mechanism of COD removal were investigated by simultaneously monitoring the COD change and chlorine/hypochlorite production. The kinetics of COD removal exhibited a two-stage kinetic model, and the decrease of electro-generated chlorine/hypochlorite production was the major mechanism for the slowing down of the COD removal rate in the second stage. The narrowing of the electrode gap is beneficial for COD removal and energy consumption.

Photocatalytic degradation of bisphenol A using an integrated system of a new gas-liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed reactor and micrometer Gd-doped TiO_2 particles

A new gas-liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed photocatalytic reactor （GLSCFBPR） with internally placed multi-layered UV lamps was developed. Micrometer Gd-TiO2 particles and commercial nanometer P25-TiO2 were chosen as the photocatalysts, and the hazardous substance bisphenol A （BPA） was chosen as the model pollutant to investigate the performance of this new photocatalytic system. The results showed that the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of the micrometer Gd-TiO2 particles was similar to that of the nanometer P-25 particles at their respective optimum dosage but the former could be easily separated out by gravity. After investigating the effects of process parameters on the photocatalytic BPA degradation, the response surface method （RSM） was further used for process optimization. The interactions among process parameters, i.e., TiO2 concentration, superficial gas velocity and superficial liquid velocity were discovered and a related analysis was carried out to explore the underlying mechanism. A quadratic mathematic model was established and performed satisfactorily when used for prediction. The optimum conditions for this new process were as follows： TiO2 concentration 4.5 g/L, superficial gas velocity 7.83 x 10-3 m/sec and superficial liquid velocity 8.65 x 10-3 m/sec.