Hydrodynamic Study of Bubbles in a Bubble Column Reactor Part I – Image Processing

Abstract:

The study of bubble column reactors has its significance in applications such as multiphase reactors, aerators and in industrial waste-water treatment. Extensive works has been done in studying the hydrodynamics of a single gas bubble flowing through stationary liquid phase. The natural breakup of bubble during its motion has been studied in the past. In the Part I of the present work, hydrodynamics of an air bubble after its artificial splitting using a stainless steel mesh is experimentally studied using image processing and high speed photography. The significance of bubble splitting is that it increases the surface area of contact between stationery and moving fluid which in turn increases the rate of reaction desired during the process. The motion of the bubble is captured during its release and after splitting using High-Speed Camera. The velocity, area and diameter of the bubble before and after splitting are calculated by applying Image processing technique on the high speed photograph. The splitting of the bubble is found to vary with the superficial gaseous velocity. The splitting of bubbles into two bubbles of nearly equal size is considered and its hydrodynamic characteristics are studied.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volumes 813-814)
• Pages: 1018-1022
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.813-814.1018
• Online since: November 2015
• Authors: S. Naveen, T. Sriram, S. Prithvi Raj, M. Venkatesan*
• Keywords: Bubble Column Reactor, Bubble Splitting, Image Processing, Two-Phase Flows

References

[1] Reilly, I.G., Scott, D.S., Abou-El-Hassan, M., Leaching In A Bubble-Column Slurry Reactor, Can. J. Chem. Eng. 60 (1982) 399-406.

DOI: 10.1002/cjce.5450600310

[2] Kang, Y., Shim, J.S., Cho, S.H., Choi, M.J., Lee, K.W., Dehydration of ortho-boric acid in a three-phase bubble column reactor operating at low pressure,J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol. 63 (1995) 313-320.

DOI: 10.1002/jctb.280630403

[3] Pawel Budzynski., Marek Dziubinski., Intensification of bubble column by introduction pulsation of liquid, Chem. Eng. Science. 78 (2014)44-57.

[4] Put, M., Francesconi, A., Goossens, W., Determination Of The Local Bubble Size Distribution In Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds 223-229 (1974).

[5] Wang, J., Zhang, H., Tao, H., Zhuang, J., Heat transfer performance of heat pipe type gas-liquid-solid three-phase fixed-bed bubble-column reactor, Huagong Xuebao/Journal of Chemical Industry and Engineering (China) 56 (2005) 446-449.

[6] Lemoine, R., Behkish, A., Morsi, B.I., Hydrodynamic and mass-transfer characteristics in organic liquid mixtures in a large-scale bubble column reactor for the toluene oxidation process, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 43 (2004) 6195-6212.

DOI: 10.1021/ie0400797

[7] PhilippRollbusch, MelanieBothe, MarkBecker, MartinaLudwig, Marcus Grunewald, Michael Schluter, Robert Franke., Bubble column reactors operated under industrially relevant conditions- Current understanding of design parameters., Che. Eng. Sci. 126 (2015).

[8] Menzel, T., In Der Weide, T., Staudacher, O., Wein, O., Onken, U., Reynolds shear stress for modeling of bubble column reactors, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research 29 (1990) 988-994.

DOI: 10.1021/ie00102a007

[9] Soong, Y., Gamwo, I.K., Blackwell, A.G., Harke, F.W., Ladner, E.P., Ultrasonic characterizations of slurries in a bubble column reactor, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 38 (1990) 2137-2143.

DOI: 10.1021/ie970932k

[10] Navisa, J., Sravya, T., Swetha, M., Venkatesan, M. Effect of Bubble Size on Aeration Process. Asian Journal of Scientific Research, 7(4) (2014) 482-487.

DOI: 10.3923/ajsr.2014.482.487

[11] Catalin Gheorghe Amza, Dumitru Titi Cicic., Industrial image processing using fuzzy logic., procedia engineering 100 (2015) 492-498.

DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2015.01.404

[12] Senthilkumaran, N., Thimmiaraja, J., Histogram equalization for image enhancement using MRI brain images, Proceedings - 2014 World Congress on Computing and Communication Technologies, WCCCT, 80-83 (2014).

DOI: 10.1109/wccct.2014.45

[13] Canny, J.F., Finding edges and lines in images, Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. Report. 1 (1983).

[14] Borgefors, G., Distance transformations in digital images, Computer vision, graphics, and image processing. 34 (1986) 344-371.

DOI: 10.1016/s0734-189x(86)80047-0

[15] Zitova, B., Flusser, J., Image registration methods: a survey, Image and vision computing, 21 (2003) 977-1000.

DOI: 10.1016/s0262-8856(03)00137-9