Mass Transfer Coefficient Studies in Bubble Column Reactor

Abstract

Stirred bubble column are widely used in chemical and allied processes industries. Stirred bubble column reactor promotes significant liquid hold-up and long liquid residence time. It is used when a large mass transfer area and high mass transfer coefficient in both phases are desired. These columns can operate continuously with a concurrent and counter current phase flow where high interfacial areas between phases are possible with low investment cost. An experimental work was undertaken to focus the effect of various parameters like Height to Diameter ratio (H/D), Gas flow rate and Speed of the stirrer (N) on mass transfer coefficient in stirred bubble column reactor. For this purpose, experiments were conducted in 0.14 m i.d column having 2 m height. The column with ring sparger having 67% active area is used as sparger for dispersing the dispersed phase into the continuous phase. For the optimized sparger plate, the effect of various parameters on mass transfer coefficient was studied based on CO 2 –absorption Technique.