Augmented CFD–PBM Simulation of Liquid–Liquid Two-Phase Flows in Liquid Extraction Columns with Wettable Internal Plates
Xiong Yu, Han Zhou, Shan Jing, Wenjie Lan, Shaowei Li
Abstract
In this study, augmented computational fluid dynamic–population balance model (CFD–PBM) simulations were carried out to predict hydrodynamics in pulsed disc and doughnut columns (PDDC) with wettable internal plates. The droplet breakage and droplet–liquid layer interaction submodels were integrated to construct an augmented PBM, which was embedded in the CFD to calculate droplet-size distributions (DSD). It was found that the augmented PBM-predicted DSDs are better than the PBM with only the breakage submodel. The influences arising from the wettability of internal plates should be carefully considered. In a pilot-scale PDDC with wettable internal plates, the augmented CFD–PBM simulation results indicated that the shape of DSDs changed little with an increase in the throughput from 80 to 200 L/(dm2·h), but was significantly influenced by the pulsation intensity as it increased from 0.0065 to 0.0125 m/s.