Experiments and modelling of a draft tube airlift reactor operated at high gas throughputs

One-dimensional modelling of global hydrodynamics and mass transfer is developed for an annulus sparged draft tube airlift reactor operating at high gas throughputs. In a first part, a specific closure law for the mean slip velocity of bubbles in the riser is proposed according for, in one hand, the collective effects on bubble rise velocity and, in the other hand, the size of the liquid recirculation in the airlift riser. This global hydrodynamics model is found towel explain the global gas volume fraction measurements in the airlift riser for a wide range of superficial gas velocity (0.6 ≤ Jg ≥10 cm sˉ¹). In a second part, mass transfer in the airlift has been studied by using the gassing-out method and a dual-tip optical probe to measure the bubble size distributions. As for bubble columns, in such airlift, the volumetric mass transfer coefficient appears to be quite proportional to the gas superficial velocity. Finally, as in Colombet et al. (2011), mass transfer at the bubble scale seems to be weakly influenced by an increase of gas volume fraction

Mass or heat transfer inside a spherical gas bubble at low to moderate Reynolds number

Mass (or heat) transfer inside a spherical gas bubble rising through a stationary liquid is investigated by direct numerical simulation. Simulations were carried out for bubble Reynolds number ranging from 0.1 to 100 and for Péclet numbers ranging from 1 to 2000. The study focuses on the effect of the bubble Reynolds number on both the interfacial transfer and the saturation time of the concentration inside the bubble. We show that the maximum velocity Umax at the bubble interface is the pertinent velocity to describe both internal and external transfers. The corresponding Sherwood (or Nusselt) numbers and the saturation time can be described by a sigmoid function depending on the Péclet number Pemax = Umaxdb/D (db and D being the bubble diameter and the corresponding diffusion coefficient)

Experiments and modelling of a draft tube airlift reactor operated at high gas throughputs

One-dimensional modelling of global hydrodynamics and mass transfer is developed for an annulus sparged draft tube airlift reactor operating at high gas throughputs. In a first part, a specific closure law for the mean slip velocity of bubbles in the riser is proposed according for, in one hand, the collective effects on bubble rise velocity and, in the other hand, the size of the liquid recirculation in the airlift riser. This global hydrodynamics model is found towel explain the global gas volume fraction measurements in the airlift riser for a wide range of superficial gas velocity (0.6 ≤ Jg ≥10 cm sˉ¹). In a second part, mass transfer in the airlift has been studied by using the gassing-out method and a dual-tip optical probe to measure the bubble size distributions. As for bubble columns, in such airlift, the volumetric mass transfer coefficient appears to be quite proportional to the gas superficial velocity. Finally, as in Colombet et al. (2011), mass transfer at the bubble scale seems to be weakly influenced by an increase of gas volume fraction

Dynamics and mass transfer of rising bubbles in a homogenous swarm at large gas volume fraction

The present work focuses on the collective effect on both bubble dynamics and mass transfer in a dense homogeneous bubble swarm for gas volume fractions ↵ up to 30%. The experimental investigation is carried out with air bubbles rising in a square column filled with water. Bubble size and shape are determined by means of a high-speed camera equipped with a telecentric lens. Gas volume fraction and bubble velocity are measured by using a dual-tip optical probe. The combination of these two techniques allows us to determine the interfacial area between the gas and the liquid. The transfer of oxygen from the bubbles to the water is measured from the time evolution of the concentration of oxygen dissolved in water, which is obtained by means of the gassing-out method. Concerning the bubble dynamics, the average vertical velocity is observed to decrease with α in agreement with previous experimental and numerical investigations, while the bubble agitation turns out to be weakly dependent on α. Concerning mass transfer, the Sherwood number is found to be very close to that of a single bubble rising at the same Reynolds number, provided the latter is based on the average vertical bubble velocity, which accounts for the effect of the gas volume fraction on the bubble rise velocity. This conclusion is valid for situations where the diffusion coefficient of the gas in the liquid is very low (high Péclet number) and the dissolved gas is well mixed at the scale of the bubble. It is understood by considering that the transfer occurs at the front part of the bubbles through a diffusion layer which is very thin compared with all flow length scales and where the flow remains similar to that of a single rising bubbl

Image processing for the experimental investigation of dense dispersed flows : Application to bubbly flows

International audienc

Perinatal grief following neonatal comfort care for lethal fetal condition

BACKGROUND: The objective of the study was to assess perinatal grief experienced after continuing pregnancy and comfort care in women diagnosed with lethal fetal condition compared with termination of pregnancy for fetal anomaly (TOPFA). METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study which included women who chose to continue their pregnancy after the diagnosis of lethal fetal condition with comfort care support at birth at the Prenatal Diagnosis Center of Rennes Hospital from January 2007 to January 2017. Women were matched with controls who underwent TOPFA for the same type of fetal anomaly, gestational age at diagnosis and year. Women were evaluated by a questionnaire including the Perinatal Grief Scale. RESULTS: There were 28 patients in the continuing pregnancy group matched with 56 patients in the TOPFA group. Interval between fetal loss and completion of questionnaire was 6±3 years. Perinatal grief score was similar at 61±22 vs 58±18 (p = 0.729) in the continuing pregnancy and TOPFA groups, respectively. Women in the TOPFA group expressed more guilt. The cesarean-section rate in the continuing pregnancy group was 25% . CONCLUSION: Perinatal grief experienced by women opting for continuing pregnancy and comfort care after diagnosis of a potentially lethal fetal anomaly is not more severe than for those choosing TOPFA

Image processing for the experimental investigation of dense dispersed flows: application to bubbly flows

In this work an image processing technique is proposed to improve the measurement of ellipsoidal ob- jects, such as bubbles in dispersed flows. This novel algorithm devoted to the measurement of bubble size, shape and trajectory is applied to binarised images from a gray-level gradient filter. To improve data statistics, an ellipse fitting method is employed to take into account truncated bubbles at the image edges. Then, an original approach is proposed to enable the segmentation of overlapping bubbles. The complete algorithm is evaluated on synthetic images and on real images for an air-bubble swarm within water. This new and robust methodology enables to increase substantially (more than 40%) the number of bubbles detected and thus to improve data convergence

On single bubble mass transfer in a volatile liquid

We consider single bubble mass transfer of an non-condensible gas into a volatile liquid phase in indus- trial conditions, as observed for example in hydrocarbons liquid phase oxidation processes. Instantaneous bubble size, shape and velocity are measured using image processing with a particle tracking method. The mass transfer rate nitrogen into hot and pressurized liquid cyclohexane is deduced from the bubble volume decrease rate and is compared to literature correlations valid under isothermal conditions. Experiments are performed in a pressurized reactor for P = 20 bar, 30° ≤ T ≤ 150°C and bubble Reynolds number Re = O(10—100). The analysis of bubble rise dynamics shows that the gas-liquid system studied can be considered as a clean system. The mass transfer results are found to follow isothermal correlations predictions excepted for ambient temperature for which liquid evaporation in bubbles is shown to be coupled with mass transfer. This phenomena seems to be a consequence of having a high Lewis number