An ultrasonic technique is under development for measuring solids concentration in a three-phase slurry reactor. Preliminary measurements have been made on slurries consisting of water, glass beads. and air bubbles. The data show that both the sound speed and attenuation are well-defined functions of both the solid and gas concentrationsin the slurries. A simplemodel is proposed to correlatethe solids concentration with the measured ultrasonic signals.

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An ultrasonic technique was developed to measure the concentration of solids in an autoclave reactor. Preliminary measurements were conducted on slurries consisting of molten paraffin wax, glass beads, and nitrogen bubbles at 189 °C. The data show that the velocity and attenuation of the sound are well-defined functions of the solid and gas concentrations in the molten wax. The results suggest possibilities for directly measuring solids concentration during operation of a three-phase slurry reactor.

An indirect method (ultrasonic) and a direct technique were used to measure solid holdup in a bubble-column reactor. Nitrogen, water, and fine glass beads were used as the gas, liquid, and solid phases, respectively. The solid particle concentration in the slurry was varied from 5 to 30 wt %, and the gas superficial velocity was increased from 0.5 to 12 cm/s. The solid holdup measurements by the ultrasonic technique compared reasonably well with results obtained by the direct sampling technique.

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