Comparison of dispersed phase holdup and slip velocity in chemical systems with different interfacial tension in an L-shaped pulsed sieve-plate extraction column

Abstract

The behavior of dispersed phase holdup (DPH) and slip velocity (SV) was studied in a new type of pulsed extraction columns, named “L-shaped pulsed sieve-plate column (LPSPC)” for five chemical systems, including water-kerosene, nitric acid-5% (v/v) TBP/kerosene, nitric acid-15% (v/v) TBP/kerosene, nitric acid-30% (v/v) TBP/kerosene, and uranyl nitrate-30% (v/v) TBP/kerosene. Then the impact of pulsation intensity, interfacial tension, and flow rate of dispersed and continuous phases, on DPH and SV was investigated. The results revealed that both DPH and SV were greatly influenced by the pulsation intensity, interfacial tension and flow rate of dispersed phase though the flow rate of continuous phase had a weaker effect. Finally, using the response surface method (RSM) and dimensional analysis procedure, new semi-experimental correlations were proposed to predict DPH and SV, which corresponded satisfactorily to the experimental data. The average absolute relative error (AARE) values of the correlations obtained by dimensional analysis for DPH and SV were about (6.56, 8.68%) and (5.52, 8.40%) for the horizontal and vertical sections, respectively.