Slurry bubble column reactors are intensively used as a multiphase reactor in the chemical, biochemical, and petrochemical industries for carrying out reactions and mass transfer operations in which a gas, made up of one or several reactive components, comes into contact or reacts with a liquid. This volume describes the hydrodynamics of three-phase gas-liquid-solid flow in a downflow slurry bubble column. The efficiency of the downflow gas interacting system is characterized by the self-entrainment of secondary gas. The book covers the gas entrainment phenomena, gas holdup characteristics, pressure drop, gasliquid mixing characteristics, bubble size distribution, interfacial phenomena, and the mass transfer phenomena in the downflow slurry system. This volume will be useful in chemical and biochemical industries and in industrial research and development sectors, as well as in advanced education courses in this area. The book will be helpful for further understanding the multiphase behavior in gas interacting multiphase systems for research and development. The hydrodynamic and mass transfer characteristics discussed will be useful in the design and installation of the modified slurry bubble column in industry for specific applications.

Bubble columns and slurry bubble columns are considered reactors of choice for a wide range of applications in the chemical, biochemical, and petrochemical industries. Most of the chemical applications of bubble columns include exothermic processes and hence they require some means of heat removal to maintain a steady process. The most practical means for heat removal in these reactors is the utilization of vertical cooling internals since they provide high heat transfer area per reactor volume. However, the effects of these internals on the reactor performance are poorly understood in the open literature. This causes the design of the internals to be based on empirical rules not on the applications of fundamentals. The main objective of this study is to enhance the understanding of the effects of vertical cooling internals on the gas hydrodynamics, gas mixing, and mass transfer. In addition, this study attempts to develop and validate models that can simulate the radial gas velocity profile and axial gas mixing in the presence and absence of internals. Finally, this work aims to validate all the observed experimental results and models in larger columns with and without internals to have a better understanding of the scale-up effects in the presence of internals. This is accomplished by carrying out experiments in a lab-scale 8-inch bubble column and a pilot-scale 18-inch bubble column in the absence and presence of internals. The studied % occluded area by internals (~ 25%) is chosen to match the % occluded area used in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The radial gas velocity profiles are measured using the 4-point optical probe and are used to validate the 1-D gas velocity model developed by Gupta (2002). Gar tracer techniques are used to study the effect of internals on the overall axial gas mixing and mass transfer. A 2-D model, that considers the radial variations of the gas velocity and gas holdup, is developed and used to analyze the tracer data allowing the estimation of the turbulent diffusivities of the gas phase. The 2-D model along with the axial dispersion coefficient model developed by Degaleesan and Dudukovic (1998) are used to determine the contribution of different mixing mechanisms to the overall axial gas mixing. The effect of internals and column diameter on the gas velocity profile, gas mixing, and mass transfer is assessed. The presence of internals causes: The effect of internals and column diameter on the gas velocity profile, gas mixing, and mass transfer is assessed. The presence of internals causes: An increase in the center-line gas velocity. A significant decrease in axial gas mixing. A decrease in the gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient. The increase in column diameter causes: Enhancement of the gas circulation. An increase in axial gas mixing. The model developed by Gupta (2002) to predict radial gas velocity profiles is validated at different operating conditions in the presence and absence of internals. A 2-D convection-diffusion model is developed and proven useful in interpreting gas tracer data and simulating the overall axial gas mixing in the presence and absence of internals.

Bubble columns and slurry bubble columns are multiphase reactors used for a wide range of applications in the biochemical, chemical, petrochemical, and metallurgical industries. In spite of their widespread usage, the scale-up of bubble columns remains an ongoing challenge. Various scale-up approaches, based on concepts ranging from ideal mixing to complex 3-D multiphase CFD models, have been used for assessing the effect of column size and gas and liquid flow rates on column hydrodynamics and reactor performance. Among these approaches, phenomenological models based on either single-class or multi-class bubbles that were validated on cold flow systems have been successful in predicting the residence time distributions of gas and liquid in pilot-scale bubble columns (Chen et al., 2004) (Gupta, 2002). However, such models are not entirely predictive, since they are validated using columns having the same size as hot operating units. To provide better predictive capability, we need prior knowledge of local hold-up, transport coefficients, and bubble dynamics. This dissertation provides an improved understanding of the key design parameters (gas hold-up, volumetric mass transfer coefficients, gas-liquid interfacial area, and their spatial distribution) for predictive scale-up of bubble columns. In this work, a 4-point optical probe is used to estimate local gas hold-up and bubble dynamics (specific interfacial area, frequency, bubble velocity, and bubble chord-lengths) and their radial profiles in a cold-flow slurry bubble column and a bubble column photo-bioreactor. Along with local bubble dynamics, the effect of superficial gas velocity on volumetric mass transport coefficients in several sizes of bubble columns, with and without internals, and in slurry bubble columns and photo-bioreactors are studied. Key findings: In the bubbly flow regime, bubble dynamics in photo-bioreactors with suspended algae were dominated by the physicochemical properties of the liquid, as distinguished from the churn-turbulent flow regime in the slurry bubble columns, where bubble dynamics were mainly affected by turbulent intensities. In the bubbly-flow regime, volumetric mass transfer coefficients increased with an increase in superficial gas velocity. However, in the churn-turbulent flow regime, they approached a constant value with an increase in the superficial gas velocity. A new methodology was proposed to identify the flow regime from optical probe signals based on the support vector machine algorithm, which can uniquely classify flow regimes for various systems on a single flow regime map. A new model for the liquid phase mixing, that with a proper choice of the mass transfer coefficients enables a good match of the predicted and measured tracer response is described. This model provides a better prediction of volumetric mass transfer coefficients than the currently used well mixed model for the liquid phase (CSTR). The dissertation improves the fundamental understanding of the connection between bubble dynamics and mass transfer. Using the 4-point optical probe as a tool, it demonstrates a connection between bubble dynamics and volumetric mass transfer coefficients. Present work addresses the need of industries to have a method that can be used as an online process control tool to identify flow regime, this method has been tested at cold flow conditions and needs to be implemented at hot flow conditions. The parameters (radial distributions of gas hold-up, bubble velocities, and volumetric mass transfer coefficient) that are evaluated in the present work can be used to validate phenomenological models and CFD results at cold flow conditions, which can later be combined with process chemistry to accomplish scale-up (Chen et al., 2004). The open literature on multiphase reactors is mainly limited to cold flow condition, and techniques such as the optical probe need to be extended to hot flow conditions. The optical probe described here can withstand high temperature and pressure, but for hot flow conditions it requires a better binding agent to hold the probe tips together, one that will not dissolve in industrial solvents.

Engineers encounter particles in a variety of systems. The particles are either naturally present or engineered into these systems. In either case these particles often significantly affect the behavior of such systems. This book provides a framework for analyzing these dispersed phase systems and describes how to synthesize the behavior of the population particles and their environment from the behavior of single particles in their local environments. Population balances are of key relevance to a very diverse group of scientists, including astrophysicists, high-energy physicists, geophysicists, colloid chemists, biophysicists, materials scientists, chemical engineers, and meteorologists. Chemical engineers have put population balances to most use, with applications in the areas of crystallization; gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, and solid-liquid dispersions; liquid membrane systems; fluidized bed reactors; aerosol reactors; and microbial cultures. Ramkrishna provides a clear and general treatment of population balances with emphasis on their wide range of applicability. New insight into population balance models incorporating random particle growth, dynamic morphological structure, and complex multivariate formulations with a clear exposition of their mathematical derivation is presented. Population Balances provides the only available treatment of the solution of inverse problems essential for identification of population balance models for breakage and aggregation processes, particle nucleation, growth processes, and more. This book is especially useful for process engineers interested in the simulation and control of particulate systems. Additionally, comprehensive treatment of the stochastic formulation of small systems provides for the modeling of stochastic systems with promising new areas of applications such as the design of sterilization systems and radiation treatment of cancerous tumors. - A clear and general treatment of population balances with emphasis on their wide range of applicability. Thus all processes involving solid-fluid and liquid-liquid dispersions, biological populations, etc. are encompassed - Provides new insight into population balance models incorporating random particle growth, dynamic morphological structure, and complex multivariate formulations with a clear exposition of their mathematical derivation - Presents a wide range of solution techniques, Monte Carlo simulation methods with a lucid exposition of their origin and scope for enhancing computational efficiency - An account of self-similar solutions of population balance equations and their significance to the treatment of data on particulate systems - The only available treatment of the solution of inverse problems essential for identification of population balance models for breakage and aggregation processes, particle nucleation and growth processes and so on - A comprehensive treatment of the stochastic formulation of small systems with several new applications

Includes abstracts of Kagaku kōgaku, v. 31-

The applications of bubble columns are very important as multiphase contactors and reactors in process industry. They are wide and extensively used in chemical, petrochemical and biochemical industries. The advantages of bubble column are low maintenance and operating cost due to the compactness and no moving part. They also have an excellent mass and heat transfer characteristic or high heat and mass transfer coefficients, and high durability of catalyst or packing material. It is important to understand the nature of hydrodynamics and operational parameters to characterize their operation including pressure drop, gas superficial velocity, bubble rise velocity, etc., to do the design and scale-up process. Although experimental methods are available to elucidate the multiphase flow in bubble column by the means of advanced experimental methods i.e. X-ray tomography and laser doppler anemometry, the experimental setup is often expensive to develop. Alternatively, the computational fluid dynamics can be used to evaluate the performance of bubble column at lower cost compared to experimental setup. In this work commercial CFD software, FLUENT 6.3 was employed for modeling of gasliquid flow in a bubble column. Multiphase simulations were performed using an Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model and the drag coefficient of spherical and distorted bubbles was modeled using the Tomiyama (1995) and Schiller-Naumann (1935) models. The effect of the void fractions on the drag coefficient was modeled using the correlation by Behzadi (2004). The CFD predictions were compared to the experimental measurement adopted from literature. The CFD predicts the turbulent kinetic energy, gas hold-up and the liquid axial velocity fairly well, although the results seem to suggest that further improvement on the interfacial exchange models and possibly further refinement on the two-fluid modeling approaches are necessary especially for the liquid axial velocity and turbulent kinetic energy. It is clear from the modeling exercise performed in this work that CFD is a great method for modeling the performance of bubble column. Furthermore, the CFD method is certainly less expensive than the experimental characterization studies.

Now in its eighth edition, Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook offers unrivaled, up-to-date coverage of all aspects of chemical engineering. For the first time, individual sections are available for purchase. Now you can receive only the content you need for a fraction of the price of the entire volume. Streamline your research, pinpoint specialized information, and save money by ordering single sections of this definitive chemical engineering reference today. First published in 1934, Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook has equipped generations of engineers and chemists with an expert source of chemical engineering information and data. Now updated to reflect the latest technology and processes of the new millennium, the Eighth Edition of this classic guide provides unsurpassed coverage of every aspect of chemical engineering-from fundamental principles to chemical processes and equipment to new computer applications. Filled with over 700 detailed illustrations, the Eighth Edition of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook features: *Comprehensive tables and charts for unit conversion *A greatly expanded section on physical and chemical data *New to this edition: the latest advances in distillation, liquid-liquid extraction, reactor modeling, biological processes, biochemical and membrane separation processes, and chemical plant safety practices with accident case histories

This technology, though used for many years, has shown great vitality recently and is still in a state of flux. Provides an account of developments up to the present and also an orderly evaluation of literature already published on the subject. Considerable space is devoted to bubble column reactor performance predictions based on mathematical models and the importance of each is explained with practical examples.