2D slurry bubble column hydrodynamic phenomena clarified with a 3D gas-liquid model

Abstract

The gas hold-up in a 2D bubble column is modelled using a 3D gas hold-up model. The influence of the scale of 2D bubble columns on several parameters, for instance, transition gas hold-up, transition gas velocity, and bubble rise velocities, is investigated and related to 3D bubble columns. By adapting the rise velocity of the large bubbles of an existing 3D bubble column model (Krishna et al., 2001a), the gas hold-up in both the homogeneous and the heterogeneous regime can be described satisfactorily. By adjusting the transition points only, it is also possible to describe the gas hold-up in systems containing small amounts of carbon particles and electrolyte. The smallest dimension of the 2D slurry bubble column, the column thickness, influences the location of the regime transition point. In the heterogeneous regime, however, it is only the largest column dimension, the column width, that influences the gas hold-up. These observations together enable proper 2D/3D bubble column comparison in future studies.