Hydrodynamics and mass transfer inthree-phase airlift reactors for activated Carbon and sludge filtration

Salehi, Mohammad Ali; Hakimghiasi, Nasrin

doi:10.22104/aet.2017.454

Hydrodynamics and mass transfer inthree-phase airlift reactors for activated Carbon and sludge filtration

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Guilan

² Msc, Department of Chemical Engineering, Guilan University, Rasht, Iran

10.22104/aet.2017.454

Abstract

A bioreactor refers to any manufactured or engineered device that supports a biologically active environment. These kinds of reactors are designed to treat wastewater treatment. Volumetric mass transfer coefficient and the effect of superficial gas velocity, as the most important operational factor on hydrodynamics, in three-phase airlift reactors are investigated in this study. The experiments for the external airlift reactor were carried out at a 0.14 downcomer to riser cross-sectional area ratio, and for the internal reactor at 0.36 and 1. Air and water were used as the gas and liquid phases, respectively, as well as activated carbon/sludge particles as the solid phase. Increasing the superficial gas velocity resulted in greater liquid circulation velocity, gas hold-up, and volumetric mass transfer coefficient; increasing the suspended activated carbon particles resulted in a decreased concentration of activated sludge, downcomer to riser cross sectional area ratio, liquid velocity, gas hold-up and volumetric mass transfer coefficient. The maximum gas hold-up was 0.178 which was attained in the external airlift reactor with a 1 Wt. % of activated sludge at a gas superficial velocity of 0.25 (m/s). The maximum volumetric mass transfer coefficient was 0.0485 (l/s) that was observed in the external airlift reactor containing activated carbon with a 0.00032 solid hold-up. A switch was observed in the activated sludge airlift reactor flow regime at gas velocities higher than 0.15 (m/s) and 0.18 (m/s) in the activated carbon airlift reactors.

Keywords

Main Subjects

water and wastewater treatment

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