The role of single deformed bubble on porous foam tray with submerged orifices on the mass transfer enhancement

Abstract

Foam trays with porous submerged orifices endow bubbles uniformly distributed, which are considered attractive column internals to enhance the gas-liquid mass transfer process. However, its irregular orifice and complex gas-liquid flow make it lack pore-scale investigations concerning the transfer mechanism of dynamic bubbling. In this work, the actual porous structure of the foam tray is obtained based on micro computed tomography technology. The shape, dynamic, and mass transfer of rising bubbles at porous orifices are investigated using the volume of fluid and continue surface force model. The results demonstrate that the liquid encroaching on the gas channels causes the increasing orifices velocity, which makes the trailing bubble easily detach from the midst of the leading bubble and causes pairing coalescence. Additionally, we found that the central breakup regimes significantly improve the gas-liquid interface area and mass transfer efficiency. This discovery exemplifies the mechanism of mass transfer intensification for foam trays and serves to promote its further development.

Key words： bubble formation; porous submerged orifices; process intensification; foam tray

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22178249).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-023-2363-3 and is accessible for authorized users.

Nomenclature

Physical quantities	Meaning
αi	Volume fraction of the i phase, dimensionless
Ab	Bubble deformation area/m2
Ab,0	Initial spherical bubble area/m2
db	Bubble diameter/m
db,0	Initial spherical bubble diameter/m
do	Orifice diameter/m
de	Equivalent diameter of the bubble/m
Dl	Diffusion coefficient/(m2·s–1)
FVOL	Volume force/N
g	Gravitational acceleration/(m·s–2)
Ga	Galilei number
HCL	Liquid level height/m
kl	Mass transfer coefficient/(m·s–1)
L	Characteristic length/m
Eo	Eötvos number
mgl	Mass transfer rate from gas to liquid/(kg·m–3·s–1)
Mo	Morton number
Vo	Basic bubble volume/m3
Vb	Bubble volume/m3
θwall	Static contact angle
ρi	i phase density/(kg·m–3)
P	System pressure/Pa
R	Bubble radius/m
ReO	Orifice Reynolds number
Ug	Superficial gas velocity/(m·s–1)
Ug,o	Gas velocity at the orifice/(m·s–1)
v	Kinematic viscosity/(m2·s–1)
µi	i phase viscosity/(mPa·s)
t	Flow time/s
σ	Surface tension/(N·m–1)
ρ	Density/(kg·m–3)
Subscripts: b means bubble; g means gas phase; l means liquid phase; o means orifice

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