Trickle bed wetting factors from pressure drop and liquid holdup measurements

In this work, solid-liquid wetting factors were determined from liquid holdup and pressure drop measurements according to the model proposed by Pironti et al. for different air-liquid systems: distilled water and CMC solutions at viscosity values of 3, 6, 9, and 12 mPa.s. The experiments were carried out at atmospheric conditions in a column of 10.2 cm internal diameter and 2 m high, packed with a cylindrical material. The superficial mass velocities varied from 0.67 to 18.6 kg/m(2)s for liquid flow and from 0.024 to 0.31 kg/m(2)s for gas flow. Under these operating conditions, regime of continuous gas flow was observed. The wetting factors obtained were in agreement with those reported by other methods, which allow us to confirm that the model used in this work is applicable to fluids of different properties at low gas velocities.