Simulations Of Gas-Liquid Flow In A Bubble Column And An Internal Airlift Loop Reactor

Bubble column and airlift reactors are attracting increasing academic and industrial research interest in view of their many potential applications. They are widely used as gas-liquid contactors and reactors in chemical, petrochemical and biochemical industries. The principle advantages of the two reactors are the absence of moving parts, leading to easy maintenance, high interfacial areas and transport rates between the gas and liquid phases, good heat transfer characteristics.In this paper, two dimensional unsteady simulations of a bubble column and an internal airlift loop reactors are presented. The simulations are based on a two-fluid model and a standard k-ε turbulence model. The fluid system is air-water. Gas volume fraction distribution and flow pattern in the two reactors are compared with the experimental and computational results in the literature.The results show that gas volume fraction distribution and flow pattern are different significantly in the two reactors. At the three superficial gas velocities, the oscillatory bubble plumes are predicted in bubble column. In the internal airlift loop reactors this phenomena exists only at higher superficial gas velocities. In both two reactors, larger superficial gas velocity,...