Bubble sizes and shapes in a counter-current bubble column with pure and binary liquid phases

It is generally admitted that the “global-scale” behavior of bubble columns is imposed by the “local-scale” phenomena. For this reason, understanding the fluid dynamics in bubble columns relies on the precise knowledge of the so-called “birth and life” of bubbles. A-priori knowledge of the bubble sizes and shapes is required to characterize the “local-scale”, to understand the “global-scale”, to set-up and validate numerical models, as well as to support scaling-up methods towards the “industrial-scale”. This paper contributes to the present-day discussion by proposing an experimental research devoted to clarify the relationships between the bubble sizes and shapes, the integral flow parameters, and the liquid phase properties. The experimental study, based on a bubble-identification methods, was performed in a “large-scale” bubble column (inner diameter equal to 0.24 m, height equal to 5.3 m) operated in the batch and in the counter-current modes with pure (deionized water) and binary (mixture of ethanol and deionized water) liquid phases. The system was operated in the pseudo-homogeneous flow regime with superficial gas velocities in the range of 0.0037–0.0188 m/s and superficial liquid velocity, in the counter-current mode, equal to −0.066 m/s. In the different experimental runs, bubble size distributions and shapes were obtained at different radial and axial locations. The experimental observations have been presented, compared with literature correlations, used to develop novel correlations (to be applied in practical applications), compared with previously obtained experimental data and interpreted in a multi-scale point of view. The comprehensive dataset obtained within this research may be used to improve the validation of numerical approaches and, in particular, to tackle the unsolved issue of developing break-up and coalescence kernels.