Pressure Drop Hysteresis of Hydrodynamic States in Packed Tower for Foaming Systems

Vijay Sodhi (Department of Chemical and Biotechnology Engineering, Beant College of Engineering and Technology, Gurdaspur, Punjab 143521)
Renu Gupta (Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar 144011)

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis
2011: BCREC Volume 6 Issue 2 Year 2011 (December 2011)

An experimental investigation was carried out to determine the effects of gas and liquid flow velocities and surface tension on the two-phase phase pressure drop a in a downflow trickle bed reactor. Water and non- Newtonian foaming solutions were employed as liquid phase. More than 240 experimental points for the trickle flow (GCF) and foaming pulsing flow (PF/FPF) regime were obtained for present study. Hydrodynamic characteristics involving two-phase pressure drop significantly influenced by gas and liquid flow rates. For 15 and 30 ppm air-aqueous surfactant solutions, two-phase pressure drop increases with higher liquid and gas flow velocities in trickle flow and foaming/pulsing flow regimes. With decrease in surface tension i.e. for 45 and 60 ppm air-aqueous surfactant systems, two-phase pressure drop increases very sharply during change in regime transition at significantly low liquid and gas velocities. © 2011 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)