Region-dependent mass transfer behavior in a forced circulation airlift loop reactor

The contribution of local regions to global mass transfer holds the key to optimization and scale-up of a reactor. Extensive study has been conducted to investigate gas–liquid mass transfer occurring in the internal airlift loop reactor, but mostly restricted to global mass transfer performance. A cold model forced circulation internal airlift loop reactor was employed and divided into six regions in which dissolved oxygen concentration in slurry and mass transfer interfacial area were measured respectively. Different models were utilized to calculate volumetric mass transfer coefficient. Contributions of individual region to global mass transfer performance were calculated and compared. It was found that mass transfer coefficient and mass transfer interfacial area of individual region increases with increasing superficial gas velocity and slurry feed flowrate. The feed affected region has the greatest mass transfer coefficient and volumetric mass transfer coefficient, contributing more than 30% to global mass transfer in most operating condition. Mass transfer interfacial area is close in the gas distributor region, feed affected region and the gas-slurry separator region. In the present work, circulating bubbles are rare and contribute negligibly to the global mass transfer. Global volumetric mass transfer coefficient is close to that of the gas-slurry separator region, ranging from 0.02 to 0.1 1/s. Comparison of kLa is made between this work and literatures, suggesting a great improvement of mass transfer due to external liquid circulation.