Mass transfer enhancement and hydrodynamic performance with wire mesh coupling solid particles in bubble column reactor

Abstract

It is of vital significance to investigate mass transfer enhancements for chemical engineering processes. This work focuses on investigating the coupling influence of embedding wire mesh and adding solid particles on bubble motion and gas–liquid mass transfer process in a bubble column. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) technology was employed to analyze the flow field and bubble motion behavior, and dynamic oxygen absorption technology was used to measure the gas–liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient kLa. The effect of embedding wire mesh, adding solid particles, and wire mesh coupling solid particles on the flow characteristic and kLa were analyzed and compared. The results show that the gas–liquid interface area increases by 33% to 72% when using the wire mesh coupling solid particles strategy compared to the gas–liquid two-phase flow, which is superior to the other two strengthening methods. Compared with the system without reinforcement, kLa in the bubble column increased by 0.5–1.8 times with wire mesh coupling solid particles method, which is higher than the sum of kLa increases with inserting wire mesh and adding particles, and the coupling reinforcement mechanism for affecting gas–liquid mass transfer process was discussed to provide a new idea for enhancing gas–liquid mass transfer.