Gas-liquid-solid Operation of a High Aspect Ratio Self-ingesting Reactor

Gas-liquid stirred vessels are widely employed to carry out chemical reactions involving a gas reagent and a liquid phase. The usual way for introducing the gas stream into the liquid phase is through suitable distributors placed below the impeller. An interesting alternative is that of using “self ingesting” vessels where the headspace gas phase is injected and dispersed into the vessel through suitable surface vortices. In this work the performance of a Long Draft Tube Self-ingesting Reactor (LDTSR) dealing with three-phase (gas-liquid-solid) systems, is investigated. Preliminary experimental results on the effectiveness of this contactor for particle suspension and gas-liquid mass transfer performance in the three-phase system, are presented. Mass-transfer parameter kLa was measured by the recently introduced Simplified Dynamic Pressure Method (SDPM). It is found that the presence of low particle fractions causes a significant increase of the minimum speed required for vortex ingestion of the gas. Impeller pumping capacity and gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient are found to be affected by the presence of solid particles.