Gas-liquid flow regimes and effective interfacial area in a solid foam block stirred tank

Abstract

Recently, a solid foam block (SFB) stirred tank has attracted wide attention owing to its excellent mass transfer efficiency. However, more fundamental information is needed to deepen the understanding of the strengthening mechanism and application of this novel stirrer. Therefore, in this work, the flow regimes and the effective interfacial area as the crucial information for the mass transfer process in the SFB stirred tank are investigated by high-speed imaging and the Danckwerts-plot technique. Four typical flow regimes are revealed in the SFB stirred tank, which corresponds to the three changes in the effective interfacial area from 30 to 1490 m − 1 when adjusting the operating conditions. Correlations are respectively developed with the deviation of ±10% and ±15% to distinguish the flow regimes and predict the effective interfacial area in SFB stirred tank. Compared with the Rushton stirred tank, the SFB stirred tank is able to generate two times effective interfacial areas at fixed power input, showing superior performance and the promising prospect in some certain multiphase application fields.