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Gas Holdup and Volumetric Mass Transfer Coefficient in a Slurry Bubble Column
Author(s) -
Vandu C.O.,
Krishna R.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.200301816
Subject(s) - slurry , mass transfer coefficient , mass transfer , bubble , superficial velocity , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , bubble column reactor , homogeneous , chromatography , materials science , thermodynamics , flow (mathematics) , mechanics , gas bubble , composite material , physics
The gas holdup, ϵ, and volumetric mass transfer coefficient, k L a , were measured in a 0.051 m diameter glass column with ethanol as the liquid phase and cobalt catalyst as the solid phase in concentrations of 1.0 and 3.8 vol.‐%. The superficial gas velocity U was varied in the range from 0 to 0.11 m/s, spanning both the homogeneous and heterogeneous flow regimes. Experimental results show that increasing catalyst concentration decreases the gas holdup to a significant extent. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient, k L a , closely follows the trend in gas holdup. Above a superficial gas velocity of 0.04 m/s the value of k L a /ϵ was found to be practically independent of slurry concentration and the gas velocity U ; the value of this parameter is found to be about 0.45 s –1 . Our studies provide a simple method for the estimation of k L a in industrial‐size bubble column slurry reactors.