Effect of particles on hydrodynamics and mass transfer in a slurry bubble column: Correlation of experimental data

Abstract The effects of particle concentration and size on hydrodynamics and mass transport in an air–water slurry bubble column were experimentally studied. When the particle concentration α s increased from 0% to 20%, the averaged gas holdup decreased by ~30%, gas holdup of small bubbles and gas–liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient decreased by up to 50%, while the gas holdup of large bubbles increased slightly. The overall effect of particle size was insignificant. A liquid turbulence attenuation model which could quantitatively describe the effects of particle concentration and size was first proposed. Semi‐empirical correlations were obtained based on extensive experimental data in a wide range of operating conditions and corrected liquid properties. The gas holdup and mass transfer coefficient calculated by the correlations agreed with the experimental data from both two‐phase and three‐phase bubble columns, with a maximum error <25%.