Mass Transfer Coefficients and Drying Rates in Through Air Drying: Part II

In this study experimental results and analysis are given of convective heat and mass transfer in the drying of tissue and towel products (25 and 50 g/m² basis weight) under commercially realistic conditions under through flow. Parameter effects on drying rate include process variables such as refining, shaping, commercial forming, initial moisture content, and drying temperature. Drying rate curves display initial increase, plateau, and final decrease as the paper dries. Nondimensional Sherwood numbers (versus Peclet number) generally agreed with and augment the available dataset on through drying.     

Influence of Pressure on the Hydrodynamics and Mass Transfer Parameters of an Agitated Bubble Reactor

The present study deals with the pressure effects on the hydrodynamic flow and mass transfer within an agitated bubble reactor operated at pressures between 10⁵ and 100 × 10⁵ Pa. In order to clarify the flow behavior within the reactor, liquid phase residence time distributions (RTD) for different operating pressures and gas velocities ranging between 0.005 m/s and 0.03 m/s are determined experimentally by the tracer method for which a KCl solution is used as a tracer. The result of the analysis of the liquid‐phase RTD curves justifies the tank‐in‐series model flow for the operating pressure range. Good agreement is obtained between theoretical and experimental results assuming the reactor is operating as perfectly mixed. Two parameters characterizing the mass transfer are identified and investigated in respect to pressure: the gas‐liquid interfacial area and volumetric liquid‐side mass transfer coefficient. The chemical absorption method is used. For a given gas mass flow rate, the interfacial area as well as the volumetric liquid mass transfer coefficient decrease with increasing operating pressure. However, for a given pressure, a and k_La increase with increasing gas mass flow rates. The mass transfer coefficient k_L is independent of pressure.     

Effect of Tween 80 on Bubble Size and Mass Transfer in a Bubble Contactor

Gas absorption in aqueous solutions with Tween 80 and absorption processes based on hydrodynamics and mass transfer is determined. The impact of surfactant concentration on gas holdup and gas‐liquid interfacial area is analyzed, observing an increase of these parameters with surfactant concentration. The influence of liquid‐phase contamination on the absorption process is investigated on the basis of the liquid‐film mass transfer coefficient, removing the effect caused by the presence of a surfactant and the gas flow rate on the interfacial area and, thereby, on the volumetric mass transfer coefficient. The opposite effect on the mass transfer coefficient can be observed which decreases in the presence of the surfactant.     

鼓泡塔中非牛顿流体体系的传质研究

本文在直径0.10 m、高1.05 m的鼓泡塔中,以羧甲基纤维素钠作为模拟介质,采用单孔喷嘴布气、孔径d_o=0.01 m,测定了该类反应器的比相界面积和容积传质系数,提出了比相界面积和传质系数的关联式。     

Impact of Surfactant Addition on Oxygen Mass Transfer in a Bubble Column

The impact of sparger design and surfactant addition on the oxygen transfer rate in a bubble column was examined. Additionally, measurements were also made of the holdup and bubble size distribution, allowing both the interfacial area for mass transfer and the liquid film mass transfer coefficient to be determined for a range of industrially relevant superficial velocities. It was found that for the velocity range examined changes in the superficial velocity had a minimal impact on the observed value of liquid film mass transfer coefficient. In contrast, addition of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface‐active compounds led to an approximately threefold reduction in liquid film mass transfer coefficient.     

Impact of Cellulose and Surfactants on Mass Transfer of Bubble Columns

The effects of cellulose, surfactants, and their combination on the hydrodynamic behavior and the liquid‐side mass transfer coefficient of a bubble column were evaluated. For that purpose, different aqueous solutions containing surfactants (sodium dodecyl sulfate) and cellulose (microcrystalline cellulose, MCC) were investigated. The interfacial areas were calculated from the bubble diameters, the bubble frequencies, and the terminal bubble rising velocities. The liquid‐side mass transfer coefficients were determined from the volumetric mass transfer coefficients measured by the dynamic method. In the concentration range under test, the experimental results proved that the addition of MCC to the studied liquid phases did not affect the mass transfer coefficient.     

Influence of Chitosan and Chitosan Derivatives on Hydrodynamics and Mass Transfer in a Bubble Contactor

The behavior of chitosan and two kinds of chitosan derivatives in carbon dioxide absorption in a bubble column contactor is analyzed. The effects of absorption type (physical or chemical), polymer type, concentration, and liquid‐phase physical properties on hydrodynamics (bubble size, gas holdup, and specific interfacial area) and mass transfer (absorption rate and mass transfer coefficient) are evaluated.     

Computing Mass Transfer at Deformable Bubbles for High Schmidt Numbers

The occurrence of extremely thin liquid-sided concentration boundary layers at bubble or droplet interfaces for realistic, i.e., high Schmidt numbers is a severe obstacle for the numerical simulation of mass transfer processes in gas-liquid systems. This contribution provides a survey of different approaches to overcome this problem, with the main emphasis put on the approach introduced and further developed by the authors. This approach employs a nonlinear flux computation and is based on the modeling of subgrid-scale concentration profiles. Based on the latest developments, recommendations for future research are also provided.     

The Effect of Type and Concentration of Nano-Particles on the Mass Transfer Coefficients: Experimental and Sherwood Number Correlating

Developments in the area of nano-fluids are ongoing specifically in the area of liquid-liquid extractions in different industries. In the present study, mass transfer coefficients have been obtained experimentally in a spray extraction column in the presence of different nano-particles to develop a new correlation for the prediction of the dispersed phase Sherwood number. The results have shown that the proposed correlation can estimate the experimental drop Sherwood number with high accuracy. Also, the conceptual effect of nano-particle hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity is quantified in correlation without which the experimental data could not be fitted with an acceptable accuracy.     

Comparison of Hydrodynamics and Mass Transfer in Airlift and Bubble Column Reactors Using CFD

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to compare the hydrodynamics and mass transfer of an internal airlift reactor with that of a bubble column reactor, operating with an air/water system in the homogeneous bubble flow regime. The liquid circulation velocities are significantly higher in the airlift configuration than in bubble columns, leading to significantly lower gas holdups. Within the riser of the airlift, the gas and liquid phases are virtually in plug flow, whereas in bubble columns the gas and liquid phases follow parabolic velocity distributions. When compared at the same superficial gas velocity, the volumetric mass transfer coefficient, k_La, for an airlift is significantly lower than that for a bubble column. However, when the results are compared at the same values of gas holdup, the values of k_La are practically identical.     

Gas Holdup and Volumetric Mass Transfer Coefficient in a Slurry Bubble Column

The gas holdup, ?, and volumetric mass transfer coefficient, k_La, were measured in a 0.051 m diameter glass column with ethanol as the liquid phase and cobalt catalyst as the solid phase in concentrations of 1.0 and 3.8 vol.‐%. The superficial gas velocity U was varied in the range from 0 to 0.11 m/s, spanning both the homogeneous and heterogeneous flow regimes. Experimental results show that increasing catalyst concentration decreases the gas holdup to a significant extent. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient, k_La, closely follows the trend in gas holdup. Above a superficial gas velocity of 0.04 m/s the value of k_La/? was found to be practically independent of slurry concentration and the gas velocity U; the value of this parameter is found to be about 0.45 s^–1. Our studies provide a simple method for the estimation of k_La in industrial‐size bubble column slurry reactors.     

Mass transfer from ensembles of fluid spheres to a power-law liquid at moderate Reynolds and Peclet numbers

The steady convective mass transfer from ensembles of mono-size Newtonian fluid spheres to power-law liquids has been studied at moderate Reynolds and Peclet numbers. The species continuity equation segregated from momentum equations has been solved numerically using a finite difference method. A simple cell model has been used to account for the modification of the flow field due to the neighbouring droplets. Extensive numerical results have been obtained which elucidate effects of the Reynolds number (Re_o), Schmidt number (Sc), power-law index (n_o), internal to external fluid characteristic viscosity ratio (k) and the volume fraction of the dispersed phase (Φ) on the rate of mass transfer. The ranges of parameters considered herein are: 1?Re_o?200, 1?Sc?10000, 0.6?n_o?1.6, 0.1?k?50 and 0.2?Φ?0.6. For shear-thinning fluids (n_o<1), the rate of mass transfer is somewhat enhanced whereas for shear-thickening fluids (n_o>1), it decreased as compared to that in Newtonian fluids (n_o=1). A simple predictive correlation has been proposed which can be used to estimate the rate of mass transfer in liquid-liquid systems in a new application involving power-law continuous phase.     

Determination of Mass Transfer Parameters by Means of Chemical Absorption

The paper presents an explicit equation for the enhancement factor of a fast irreversible second‐order reaction. The equation makes it possible to determine the effective interfacial area and the liquid‐phase mass‐transfer coefficient of this reaction regime. With the help of a new plot as described in this paper, the Danckwerts plot, and the method for determining the interfacial area by means of a pseudo‐first‐order reaction the paper discusses a novel method for characterizing the reaction regime of experimental data.     

Mass transfer around freely moving active particles in the dense phase of a gas fluidized bed of inert particles

The mass transfer coefficient around freely moving active particles under bubbling/slugging fluidized bed conditions was measured in a lab-scale reactor. The technique used for the measurements consisted in the oxidation reaction of carbon monoxide at over one or few Pt catalyst spheres immersed in an inert bed of sand. It was shown that this technique is simple and accurate, and allows to overcome most of the difficulties and uncertainties associated with other available techniques. The experimental campaign was carried out by varying the fluidization velocity (0.15-0.90 m/s), the active particle size (1.0-10.0 mm) and the inert particle size (0.1-1.4 mm). Results were analyzed in terms of the particle Sherwood number. Experimental data showed that Sh is not influenced by the fluidization velocity and by a change of regime from bubbling to slugging, whereas it increases with a square root dependence with the minimum fluidization velocity and with the active particle size. These results strongly suggest that the active particles only reside in the dense phase and never enter the bubble/slug phase. Data were excellently fitted by a Frössling-type correlation:

Sh=2.0·ε_mf+K·(Re_mf/ε_mf)^1/2·Sc^1/3     

Two‐Phase Flow with Mass Transfer in Bubble Columns

Bubble columns are widely used in the chemical and biochemical industries. In these reactors a gaseous phase is dispersed into a continuous liquid phase thus the rising bubble swarm induces a circulating flow field. For the dimension of these reactors the local interfacial area and the residence time of the liquid and the gaseous phase are key parameters. In this paper an Euler‐Euler approach is used to calculate the flow field in bubble columns numerically. Therefore a transport equation for the mean bubble volume based on a population balance equation approach is coupled with the balance equations for mass and momentum. The calculations are performed for three‐dimensional, instationary flow fields in cylindrical bubble columns considering the homogeneous and the heterogeneous flow regime. For the interphase mass transfer the physical absorption of the gaseous phase into the liquid is assumed. The back mixing in the gaseous and liquid phase is calculated from the local and time dependent concentration of a tracer.     

A Simple Approach to Measuring the Gas Phase Heat and Mass Transfer Coefficients in a Bubble Column

A simple experimental approach was developed to measure the gas phase volumetric heat and mass transfer coefficients in a bubble column and a slurry bubble column employing a single gas nozzle. The experimental technique was based on a transfer model that simulates humidification and direct contact evaporation models in the case of a gas bubble rising in a liquid of uniform temperature. The temperature and relative humidity of the inlet and outlet gas in the column are the only measurements required in this technique. Experiments were carried out in a 0.15 m inner diameter column using water as the liquid phase, air as the gas phase, and cation resins of 0.1 mm diameter and a specific gravity of 1.2, as the solid phase. The results showed that, when using solid concentrations in the range of 7–10 wt %, both the volumetric gas‐phase heat and mass transfer coefficients increased with an increase in the gas superficial velocity and were further enhanced by increasing the solid load after a certain minimum superficial velocity had been reached in the column (0.044 m/s in the system used). Increasing the solid load beyond 10 wt %, did not contribute to a further increase in these coefficients. Furthermore, the gas holdup in the column increased with the superficial gas velocity and was further enhanced when the solid‐phase load was in the range of 7–10 wt %. These observations agree well with previously reported findings by other investigators.     

Gas-Liquid Mass Transfer Characteristics in a Gas-Liquid-Solid Bubble Column under Elevated Pressure and Temperature

abstract The volumetric mass transfer coefficient kLa of gases (H2, CO, CO2) and mass transfer coefficient kL on liquid par-affin side were studied using the dynamic absorption method in slurry bubble ...     

Diffusion of Large Nitrogen Bubbles into Tap Water Studied by the Rotary Chamber Technique

The rotary chamber technique allows extended observation times of rising bubbles up into the 10‐mm range. After establishing the technique in combination with optical sizing in previous publications, this work completes the case of nitrogen bubbles in tap water. The rise velocity and the mass transfer are measured for five degrees of water saturation. A one‐parameter model equation involving the Archimedes number is offered for calculation. The limit of the analytical boundary layer model is depicted.