CFD study of mixing characteristics of bubble column and external loop airlift reactor

In the present work, a computational fluid dynamics study has been carried out to bring out the mixing characteristics of bubble column and external loop airlift reactor. A comparison of mixing time for two reactors has been presented on the basis of the same reactor volume as well as the total power input. The CFD model was validated by simulating flow, both in bubble column and external loop airlift reactor. An agreement was observed between the predicted and the experimental data available in the published literature. The validated CFD model has been extended for the simulation of the mixing time for both the reactors. The CFD predictions of mixing time show good agreement with the experimental values published in literature. A systematic numerical study was then carried out to bring out the mixing characteristics of both the reactors. (C) 2008 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.