Effect of Solid Particles on Gas Holdup in a Slurry Bubble Column

Abstract

A slurry bubble column SBC is a vertical cylindrical column that consists of a solid and liquid slurry and a gas that is injected from the bottom. The study of gas holdup plays an important role in the scale up analysis of a SBC from the perspective of hydrodynamics. In SBCs, the volumetric solid concentration greatly affects the hydrodynamics. Solid particles concentration in the liquid phase changes the slurry physical properties namely increase the density, and the dynamic viscosity. In this paper, the impact of solid particles concentration on overall gas holdup is studied by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for a heliumwater-alumina slurry bubble column, where helium gas is injected at 90 o C through a slurry of water liquid and alumina solid particles at 22 o C. It is assumed that the slurry inside the slurry bubble column is perfectly mixed, and the approaches used to model the slurry bubble column by CFD are 2D plane. In this paper, it was found that the overall gas holdup decreases by increasing the solid particle concentration at any specific superficial gas velocity and static liquid height. The CFD simulation results of the effect of solid particles concentration on gas holdup were compared with previous experimental results of helium-water-alumina SBCs for three different solid concentrations of 0%, 5%, and 10%. The results of the CFD simulations showed good agreement with the experimental results, which shows that the simulations correctly predicted the experimental effects of the solid concentrations on gas holdup.

Integrating E-Learning in Metaverse for Sustainable Development of Higher Education and Training

“…In examining the direct contact heat transfer within the oxygen reactor, comprehensive investigations were conducted utilizing both experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approaches (Abdulrahman, , 2016e, 2016f, 2016g, 2018(Abdulrahman, , 2020b(Abdulrahman, ,, 2020c(Abdulrahman, , 2022b(Abdulrahman, , 2022c(Abdulrahman, , 2022d(Abdulrahman, , 2023a(Abdulrahman, , 2023b(Abdulrahman, , 2023c. These studies aimed to understand and analyse the heat transfer mechanisms occurring within the reactor, where oxygen gas interacts directly with the other components, such as molten salt or solid particles.…”

Review of the Thermal Hydraulics of Multi-Phase Oxygen Production Reactor in the Cu-Cl Cycle of Hydrogen Production

“…In the studies of the direct contact heat transfer of the oxygen reactor, both of the experimental and CFD studies were performed [5,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. In the experimental works [5,[32][33][34][35], the actual materials of oxygen reactor such as oxygen gas, molten CuCl, and solid copper oxychloride, were simulated by alternative materials such as helium gas, water, and alumina solid particles.…”

“…In the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of direct contact heat transfer in the multiphase oxygen reactor, the effects of superficial gas velocity, static liquid height, and solid particles concentration, on the volumetric heat transfer coefficient, temperature distribution and overall gas holdup were investigated in details [5,[36][37][38][39][40]. The slurry within the slurry bubble column was assumed to be perfectly mixed, and the slurry bubble column was modelled using a 2D planar method.…”

Eulerian Approach to CFD Analysis of a Bubble Column Reactor – A Review

“…Abdulrahman [28] investigated the effects of varying the solid concentrations from 0%, 5% and 10% on the gas holdup with reactor diameter of 21.6 cm and heights of 45 cm and 65cm. The study was conducted using a 2D CFD software assuming a two-phase slurry of water and helium.…”