Gas holdup in highly viscous liquids in gas-liquid spouted beds

Gas holdup in highly viscous fluid in two phase spouted bed operated continuously with respect to the gas flow and batchwise with respect to the liquid was investigated using bed expansion technique. Experiments were carried out in three cylindrical spouted beds having diameters of 74 mm, 114 mm and 144 mm and height of 1000 mm under the conditions of superficial gas velocities between 0.0018 m-s(-1) and 0.29 m-s(-1), liquid viscosities between 0.063 Pa-s and 0.320 Pa-s, six static bed heights of 0.12 m, 0.18 m, 0.24 m, 0.30 m, 0.36 m and 0.48 m, surface tension between 0.0248 N-m(-1) and 0.035 N-m(-1) and density between 906 kg-m(-3) to 928 kg-m(-3) using a single nozzle sparger of 10.0 mm diameter, A correlation for the gas holdup was presented, with maximum deviation of 9%. This correlation was compared with those available in the literature.