Development of a method to measure axial and radial dispersion coefficients in multiphase contactors with the volumetric flow modulation technique

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Hampel
• Subject Area: Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424631424

Contactors in the process industry have the task to provide an efficient mass and heat transfer between immiscible fluids for the purpose of separation, enrichment or chemical reaction. For the engineering design of contactors, it is necessary to have the major hydrodynamic parameters. Among them are gas holdup, gas phase velocity and dispersion coefficients. The project deals with a new and universally applicable method to determine the dispersion coefficient via minimal modulation of a volumetric flow rate and phase-synchronous measurement of gamma radiation transmission. Objectives are to further develop this method, analyze fundamental uncertainties of the method, test and assess different sensing principles, provide a comprehensive study on bubble column devices, translate the method towards trickle bed reactors and implement and test an extension of the method to get also the radial dispersion coefficients via a projective gamma radiation transmission measurement.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants