Effect of dual impeller-sparger geometry on the hydrodynamics and mass transfer in stirred vessels

The understanding of the effect of impeller-sparger configurations on gas dispersion and mass transfer is very important to improve the performance of gas/liquid contactor systems. The influence of the impeller positions, the upper turbine diameter, the sparger ring diameter and its location in regard to the lower impeller on the power consumption, the volumetric mass-transfer coefficient and the overall oxygen transfer efficiency were studied in a nonstandard curved bottomed reactor with an agitated system with dual disk style turbines. In the range of the gas flow rates studied, the most efficient impeller-sparger arrangement for the oxygen transfer is the impeller system with turbines of different diameters located at C = 0.25 and IC = 0.5, and with the sparger of smaller diameter than the lower impeller settled below the impeller. A new model to estimate the k(L)a with an average relative error of 8 %, which takes the reactor operation conditions and the influence of the impeller-sparger geometry into account, was also proposed.