带导流管多层流化床流体力学特性实验研究

多层流化床的应用范围受操作可调性和稳定性等因素限制。在改变传统筛板结构的基础上,研究了传统穿流板多层流化床和导流管多层流化床床层压降随表观气速和进料速率的变化规律,实验结果表明,导流管多层流化床不仅大幅减小了床层压降、提高了床体处理能力和可调范围,而且也改善了物料的流化质量。此外,当料层达到一定高度时,导流管多层流化床还具有喷动流化床的特性,同时导流管还具有溢流物料的作用,进一步加大了气固传质效率和床体处理能力。在流体力学分析的基础上,推导出导流管多层流化床床层压降的关联式,得到了床层压降随进气气速和进料速率的关系,与实验数据基本吻合。     

Fluid-dynamic experimental study in a slurry bubble column with a tube bank in cross flow

In this work, the fluid-dynamic of a slurry bubble column provided with a tube bank operating in cross flow was studied. The main objective was to determine the influence of the air velocity, the slurry velocity, and the solid concentration in the gas holdup and solid distribution inside a bed with internals. Pilot scale equipment with a column of square traverse section (0.144 m 2 ) of stainless steel with 2.20 m height was used. The column base has a truncated pyramidal shape with an inclination angle to the vertical of 20°. In the central part of the equipment, there is a bank of 49 tubes ( D =2.54 cm and L =38 cm) in an aligned arrangement ( S_L=S_T=4.4,rm cm ). The three-phase system used was compressed air, tap water, and sieved sand ( D_p=0.0505,rm cm ). The velocities of liquid and gas phases were varied in the range from 0.31 to 1.24 cm/s and from 1.41 to 3.15 cm/s, respectively, and the solids load concentration from 0 to 30% w/w. According to the results, when the liquid and gas phase velocities increase, the gas holdup, varepsilon_G , increases, while when the solids load concentration increases, varepsilon_G presents a local maximum at intermediate values, varepsilon_G being the largest for the two-phase system. Analogously, the axial profiles of solids concentration showed a local maximum in the central region of the column, exactly in the area of the tube bank. In the traverse direction, the solids concentration increases gradually heading to the center of the column. These profiles, axial and traverse, become more uniform as the air velocity increases and the slurry as well. In addition, according to expectations, the solids concentration increases in each point of the column as the load concentration is increased in the system.     

Size of bubbles and liquid circulation in a bubble column with a draught tube and sieve plate

The size distribution of bubbles and the liquid circulation in a bubble column with a draught tube and sieve plate were studied experimentally. The size of bubbles is well correlated with the previous result of the authors; the size distribution data are fitted reasonably well by a logarithmic normal probability distribution. Gas holdup in the draught tube and annulus and pressure drop were measured and correlations for these parameters are obtained. An energy balance is used to predict liquid circulating velocity using gas holdup and pressure drop correlations. Reasonable agreement is found between the calculated and measured circulating velocity.     

CFD simulation of gas–solid flow in a spouted bed with a non-porous draft tube

A multi-fluid Eulerian–Eulerian approach incorporating the kinetic theory of granular flow was used to simulate a spouted bed containing non-porous draft tube. Drag function and coefficient of restitution were investigated. Solid and gas velocity vector, gas flow rate in annulus and spout regions and longitudinal pressure distribution were evaluated. In addition, the effects of the entrainment height and the draft tube diameter were studied. Simulation indicates the formation of three regions namely, annulus, spout and fountain; similar to a conventional spouted bed. Current model predicts acceptable results in both spout and annulus regions. Simulation results indicate that the model can be employed for both mono-size and multi-size particles reasonably. This paper provides useful basis for further works on understanding gas–solid flow mechanism in spouted beds containing a non-porous draft tube.     

The effect of bubble column diameter on gas holdup in fiber suspensions

Three bubble column diameters (D=10.2, 15.2, and 32.1 cm) are employed to study the scale-up effect on gas holdup in air-water and air-water-cellulose fiber (hardwood, softwood, and BCTMP) systems. The effect of column diameter depends on flow regime and fiber mass fraction. When , gas holdup decreases with increasing column diameter for the transitional and heterogeneous flow regime, and column diameter effects are negligible in the homogeneous flow regime. When , gas holdup is only affected by column diameter in the transitional flow regime for an air-water system and low fiber mass fraction suspensions (C?0.25%); column diameter effects disappear at medium fiber mass fractions (e.g., C=0.8%) but are significant at high fiber mass fractions (e.g., C=1.4%).     

Studies on the solid circulation rate and gas bypassing in spouted fluid-bed with a draft tube

Experiments were performed in a 28.6 cm diameter transparent semicircular vessel with a 9.6 cm diameter draft tube using polyethylene beads (ρ_s = 0.91 g/cm³) and hollow epoxy spheres (ρ_s = 0.21 g/cm³) as the bed material to study the effect of operating conditions, the distributor plate design, and the draft tube inlet configurations on the solid circulation rate and the gas distribution between the downcomer and the draft tube. Solid circulation rate was found to be strongly affected by the design configuration at the bottom of the draft tube and the downcomer, which provided different gas bypassing characteristics and resulted in different amount of aeration in the downcomer region.     

Bubble size distribution in a bubble column with vertical tube internals: Experiments and CFD-PBM simulations

Knowledge of bubble size distribution (BSD) is critical for controlling mass transfer and reaction in bubble column reactors. Installation of internals further complicates this issue. The effects of internals on BSD were systematically investigated through experiments and computational fluid dynamics-population balance model simulations. The experiments show a bimodal distribution of the volume-based BSD except at low superficial gas velocity of 0.01 m/s. Addition of 20% internals increases the small-bubbles fraction, making the first BSD peak more evident. Correspondingly, the simulation reveals a prominent decrease of turbulent dissipation rate and turbulent kinetic energy. Moreover, while the unresolved turbulent kinetic energy dominates in the empty columns, the resolved portion becomes the major component in the presence of internals. This suggests that internals may redistribute turbulent kinetic energy in each scale, which provides more insights into the complex flow characteristics in the presence of internals and process intensification.     

Mixing in a co‐current upflow bubble column reactors with and without internals

Liquid phase mixing is a phenomenon that results mainly due to convective and turbulent flow fields, which are generated by hydrodynamic interactions between the gas and liquid phases within a continuous co‐current upflow bubble column reactor. The extent of liquid phase mixing is usually quantified through the mixing time, or the axial dispersion coefficient. In the present work, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for mixing and RTD in a continuous bubble column (with and without internals) are performed by using OpenFOAM 2.3.1. The superficial gas velocities were 0.014, 0.088, and 0.221 m/s and the superficial liquid velocities were 0.005 and 0.014 m/s. The simulations have been performed for three different configurations of the bubble column, that is, (a) an open bubble column, (b) a column with one vertical central rod of 36 mm diameter, (c) a column with the same central rod and four vertical additional rods of 12 mm diameter. The effects of superficial gas and liquid velocities and column internals were investigated on liquid phase mixing and the axial dispersion coefficient. Comparisons have been made between the experimental measurements and the CFD simulations.

     

Single bubble formation in high pressure liquid—solid suspensions

Bubble formation from a single nozzle is investigated analytically and experimentally in nonaqueous liquid and liquid—solid suspensions at pressures up to 17.3 MPa. A mechanistic model is proposed to predict the initial bubble size in liquid—solid suspensions, by taking into account the various forces affecting the bubble growth including those induced by the presence of the particles, such as the suspension inertial force and the particle-bubble collision force. It is found that the initial bubble size in the suspensions is generally larger than that in the liquid mainly due to the inertia effect of the suspension. The initial bubble size increases with the solids holdup. The pressure has an insignificant effect on the initial bubble size in both the liquid and liquid—solid suspensions under the conditions of this study. The model can reasonably predict the initial bubble sizes obtained in this study and those reported in the literature.     

Characteristics of reciprocating screen-plate bubble column with dilute alcohol solutions

Characteristics of a reciprocating screen-plate bubble column were experimentally determined with dilute alcohol solutions. Results show that the addition of ethanol up to the concentration of 0.8 wt% produces very large gas holdups and overall mass transfer coefficients, in comparison with conventional bubble columns. The plate agitation was shown to cause increases not only in the interfacial area “a” but also in the individual mass transfer coefficient k_L when the speed of reciprocation was high.     

Diluted alcohol solutions in bubble columns and draft tube airlift reactors with a single orifice sparger: experiments and simple correlations

BACKGROUND: Bubble columns (BCs) and airlift reactors (ALRs) have important applications as bioreactors, chemical reactors and as contactors in waste‐water treatment. The liquid phase properties in these reactors significantly influence the main hydrodynamic and mass transfer characteristics. Dilute alcohol solutions can be used to simulate real industrial systems in bioreactors. However, only a few research studies have considered such systems. The aim of this paper is to broaden the existing experimental data related to the influence of alcohol addition on the main characteristics of draft tube airlift reactors (DT‐ALRs), and to propose simple correlations for their prediction. RESULTS: New experiments were conducted in a DT‐ALR with a single orifice sparger, and with dilute aliphatic alcohol solutions from methanol to n‐octanol. Also, simple correlations were developed to predict the gas hold‐up and volumetric mass transfer coefficients in BCs and DT‐ALRs, but also the downcomer liquid velocity and liquid circulation time DT‐ALRs with single orifice sparger and dilute alcohol solutions. The proposed correlations included, in addition to the superficial gas velocity, the surface tension gradient as the only factor to characterize the liquid phase. CONCLUSIONS: General conclusion can be made that the gas holdup increased, but the downcomer liquid velocity decreased in a DT‐ALR, with increase in surface tension gradient of the alcohol solutions. Also, very good agreement was achieved between experimental and calculated data, by applying the developed correlations, with relative average errors less than 5%, except for gas hold‐up, where it was in the range 8–32%. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

Local hydrodynamics modeling of a gas–liquid–solid three-phase bubble column

A three-dimensional (3D) transient model was developed to simulate the local hydrodynamics of a gas–liquid–solid three-phase bubble column using the computational fluid dynamic method, where the multiple size group model was adopted to determine the size distribution of the gas bubbles. Model simulation results, such as the local time-averaged gas holdups and axial liquid velocities, were validated by experimental measurements under varied operating conditions, e.g., superficial gas velocities and initial solid loadings at different locations in the three-phase bubble column. Furthermore, the local transient hydrodynamic characteristics, such as gas holdups, liquid velocities, and solid holdups, as well as gas bubble size distribution were predicted reasonably by the developed model for the dynamic behaviors of the three-phase bubble column. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2007     

Characterizing regime transitions in a bubble column with internals

Effects of internals on flow regimes are systematically investigated in a lab-scale bubble column (BC) through six approaches: total gas holdup, drift-flux, standard deviation, fractal analysis, chaos analysis and wavelet analysis. With increasing internals-covered cross-sectional area (CSA), these methods give various value of the first transitional superficial gas velocity, as different scales of structures are detected to characterize regime transition. While internals are found to have marginal effect on total gas holdup, significant change in gas-holdup structure is discovered, showing a decrease in large-bubbles holdup and an increase in small-bubbles holdup in transitional and churn-turbulent regimes. We propose a novel approach based on wavelet analysis to demarcate the boundaries among micro-, meso-, and macro-scales. The energy fraction of these representative scales identifies two transitional velocities, suggesting that internals advance the advent of first transition and delay the second one. The operating window of transitional regime is, therefore, remarkably extended.     

Investigation of low-temperature methanol synthesis in a bubble column slurry reactor with a flash column

Reaction performance of a CuCr/CH₃ONa catalyst for the low-temperature methanol synthesis was examined in a bubble column slurry reactor with a flash column (BCSR/FC). The BCSR/FC was operated at 4.5 ± 0.2 MPa/110–120 °C for BCSR and 0.4 ± 0.1 MPa/80–90 °C for FC, although fluctuation of operation parameters was larger. Syngas conversion decreased from 71.0% to 19.8% during the operation test in 100 h, which was attributed to consumption of CH₃ONa and a negative effect of the emulsifier OP-10 used.     

Characteristics of a countercurrent reciprocating plate bubble column. I. Holdup,pressure drop and bubble diameter

The hydrodynamics of countercurrent air/water flow in a 5 cm diameter reciprocating plate bubble column have been studied; the plates contained 14 mm diameter perforations and had a fractional open area of 0.57. The ranges of superficial velocities of air and water were respectively 0-0.99 cm/s and 0-3.95 cm/s. The stroke was in most cases 4.5 cm and the reciprocation frequency was in the range 0–5 Hz. The pressure drops were measured in the absence of reciprocation for single phase and two phase flow conditions. Pressure fluctuations and time-averaged pressure drops were measured with plate reciprocation under single and two-phase conditions. The results were described in terms of the simple quasi-steady state model; the effective orifice coefficients of the perforations were within the range 0.4 to 0.97 depending on the reciprocation conditions. The Sauter mean diameters of the bubbles decreased with agitation; they were about twice the values predicted from an earlier correlation developed for liquid-liquid systems. The gas holdups were also substantially greater than predicted from correlations based on liquid-liquid systems. Both these effects were explained as due to the tendency for bubbles to cluster in the plate region.