The Effect of Surfactants on Characteristics of Hydrodynamic and Mass Transfer Coefficient in Gas-Liquid Dispersion Column

Abstract

This work studis the effect of liquid properties (water, solution 0.2-1.5 wt% for each of i-propanol, and n-butanol), temperature (26-55 oC) andsuperficial air velocity (1-15cm/s) on the gas holdup and mass transfercoefficient in air-liquid dispersion column. The experimental procedure wascarried out by QVF column (10 cm i.d, 1.5 m height) and air bubbling bymulti-orifice distributor (2 mm, 49 holes in square pitch). The experimentalresults are presented in two and three dimension graphs, these graphsindicate, increases in holdup and mass transfer coefficient with increasingweight percent of alcohols, temperature, and superficial velocity of air. Thegas holdup and mass transfer coefficient are in the following ordern-butanol > i-propanol > water. Also the experimental results were correlatedby fitting empirical correlations.Some of the results have been correlated on the basis of drift flux modelin order to express the effect of surface active agent on radial uniformity flowand gas holdup profiles.