Influence of the Sparger Type and Added Alcohol on the Gas Holdup of an External-Loop Airlift Reactor

The influences of alcohol adding and three different gas spargers (single orifice, perforated plate, and sinter plate) on the gas holdup in an external-loop airlift reactor were studied. The experimental results show that the gas holdup can be increased by mutual influence of both the alcohol adding and the sparger type. The presence of small amounts of normal aliphatic alcohols caused an increase of the gas holdup compared to the air-water system, due to their coalescence-inhibiting nature. The sinter plate was the most efficient sparger, followed by the perforated plate and the single orifice. A proposed artificial neural network (ANN) has the potential to predict gas holdup values in airlift reactors for various alcohols and types of gas spargers.