Liquid Circulation in a Multi-tube Air-lift Loop Reactor

A multi-tube air-lift loop reactor (MT-ALR) is presented in this paper. Based on the energy conservation, a mathematical model describing the liquid circulation flow rate was developed, which was determined by gas velocity, the cross areas of riser and downcomer, gas hold-up and the local frictional loss coefficient. The experimental data indicate that either increase of gas flow rate or reduction of the downcomer diameter contributes to higher liquid circulation rate. The correlation between total and the local frictional loss coefficients was also established.Effects of gas flowrate in two risers and diameter of downcomer on the liquid circulation rate were examined. The value of total frictional loss coefficient was measured as a function of the cross area of downcomer and independent of the gas flow rate. The calculated results of liquid circulation rates agreed well with the experimental data with an average relative error of 9.6%.

Hydrodynamic characteristics of a rectangular gas-driven inverse liquid-solid fluidized bed

The hydrodynamic characteristics of a rectangular gas-driven inverse liquid-solid fluidized bed(GDFB)using particles of different diameters and densities were investigated in detail.Rising gas bubbles cause a liquid upflow in the riser portion,enabling a liquid downflow that causes an inverse fluidization in the downer portion.Four flow regimes(fixed bed regime,initial fluidization regime,complete fluidization regime,and circulating fluidization regime)and three transition gas velocities(initial fluidization gas velocity,minimum fluidization gas velocity,and circulating fluidization gas velocity)were identified via visual observation and by monitoring the variations in the pressure drop.The axial local bed voidage(e)of the downer first decreases and then increases with the increase of the gas velocity.Both the liquid circulation velocity and the average particle velocity inside the downer increase with the increase of the gas velocity in the riser,but decrease with the particle loading.An empirical formula was proposed to successfully predict the Richardson-Zaki index“n”,and the predicted e obtained from this formula has a±5%relative error when compared with the experimental e.

CFD simulation of the hydrodynamics in an internal air-lift reactor with two different configurations

Computationalfluid dynamics(CFD)was used to investigate the hydrodynamic parameters of two internal airlift bioreactors with different configurations.Both had a riser diameter of 0.1 m.The model was used to predict the effect of the reactor geometry on the reactor hydrody-namics.Water was utilized as the continuous phase and air in the form of bubbles was applied as the dispersed phase.A two-phaseflow model provided by the bubblyflow application mode was employed in this project.In the liquid phase,the turbulence can be described using the k-εmodel.Simulated gas holdup and liquid circulation velocity results were compared with experimental data.The predictions of the simulation are in good agreement with the experimental data.