Circulating Jet for Enhancing the Mass Transfer in a Gas-liquid Stirred
Tank Reactor
Abstract
A gas-liquid stirred tank reactor (STR) has some problems, such as low
mass transfer efficiency, high exhaust gas oxygen concentration, and low
product conversion rate, due to limitations of stirring speed and input
power. This article proposes a method to enhance the gas-liquid mass
transfer in a STR using circulating jet internals. When a circulating
jet is added, the average bubble size in the reactor is reduced to 1.26
mm, and the overall gas holdup is increased to 8.23%, which is an
increase of 3.62 times of the original STR. The gas-liquid volumetric
mass transfer coefficient is increased to 0.05556 s-1, which is 4.84
times of the original STR. The unit volume power is increased by only
1.4 times. These data provide references for the design and scale-up of
new jet STRs.