Comprehensive experimental investigation of counter-current bubble column hydrodynamics: Holdup, flow regime transition, bubble size distributions and local flow properties

In this paper, we apply a variety of experimental techniques to investigate the influence of the counter-current mode on bubble column hydrodynamics. We study an air-water bubble column, which is 5.3 m in height and has an inner diameter of 0.24 m, and we consider gas superficial velocities in the range of 0.004-0.20 m/s and liquid superficial velocities up to -0.09 m/s. The experimental investigation consists of holdup, gas disengagement, image analysis and optical probe measurements. The holdup measurements are compared with the literature and are used to investigate the flow regime transition. The gas disengagement measurements are used to further investigate the flow regime transition and study the structure of the holdup curve. The image analysis is used to study the bubble shapes and size distributions near the sparger and in the developed region of the column; in particular, the image analysis is applied to different gas velocities in the homogeneous regime in both the batch and counter-current modes. The optical probe is used to acquire radial profiles of the local properties (i.e., local void fraction and bubble rise velocity) to study the flow properties and further investigate the flow regime transition. Comparing the results from the different techniques, the influence of the gas superficial velocity and the liquid superficial velocity is discussed considering all main aspects of the two-phase flow, from the local flow properties to the global flow features. The counter-current mode is found to increase the holdup, reduce the bubble rise velocity, destabilize the homogeneous regime and change the local flow properties. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd