Hydrodynamics and mass transfer effects in bubble columns

Laburpena

The thesis entitled 'Hydrodynamics and mass transfer effects in bubble columns' offers a comprehensive characterization of the hydrodynamic behavior of a gas-liquid system as well as a complete description of the mass transfer processes occurring in a partially aerated bubble column working under several experimental conditions. New theoretical approaches are presented for both the gas holdup and the volumetric mass transfer coefficient calculation, essential parameters in the design and optimization of this kind of gas-liquid contactors. These new correlation equations have been validated for several experimental systems and the results obtained offer a good representation of the experimental behavior observed. Parallel to the experimental and modeling work, a dynamic computational model able to simulate the results experimentally obtained have been developed. The comparison performed between the experimental results and the calculations have led to a satisfactory agreement and validation of the CFD model proposed.