A novel airlift reactor enhanced by funnel internals and hydrodynamics prediction by the CFD method

• Published in: Bioresource technology Vol. 104; pp. 600 - 607
• Main Authors: Zhang, Tao, Wei, Chaohai, Feng, Chunhua, Zhu, Jialiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-01-2012
• Subjects: Air; Airlift reactor; Bioreactors; CFD; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Computer-Aided Design; energy; Equipment Design; Equipment Failure Analysis; Fluid flow; Funnels; gases; Hydrodynamics; Internals; Mathematical models; prediction; Reactors; Rheology - methods; Turbulence; Turbulent flow; CFD; Airlift reactor; Hydrodynamics; Internals
• ISSN: 0960-8524; 1873-2976
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2011.11.008

► A novel airlift reactor enhanced by funnel internals at the top is developed in this study. ► A multiphase CFD model is developed for the hydrodynamics simulation in the studied reactor. ► CFD model can reproduce the experimental flow parameters well. ► The reactor can increase total gas holdup and reduce turbulent intensity, which make it more favorable to wastewater treatment.
Airlift reactors have been used widely in many industrial processes, but little work has been conducted on such reactors integrated with internals. In this study, a novel airlift reactor with a funnel internal was developed to achieve better flow conditions and advantages in biological processes. The CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation method was employed to investigate the effect of the funnel internals on hydrodynamic properties in the reactor. A CFD model was developed for gas–liquid two-phase flow simulation in a bench-scale reactor. Grid-independent simulation results were verified with global-scale experimental data. The results showed that the local or global gas holdup could be enhanced by 15% and that turbulent kinetic energy could be reduced by a maximum of 7.8% when the superficial gas velocity was 1cm/s. These features are beneficial for applications in stress-sensitive biological processes.