Mass transfer and hydrodynamics in stirred gas-liquid-liquid contactors

It can be concluded from the research study described in this thesis that the mechanism of mass transfer in gas-liquid-liquid systems is still not completely clear. In this work mass transfer experiments were carried out with five different organic dispersed liquids, toluene, 1-octanol, n-heptane, n-dodecane and n-butyraldehyde. Toluene and octanol increased the gas-liquid mass transfer rate, after an initial decrease in kL (octanol) or a (toluene). The increase in mass transfer could be well described using a homogeneous model of the shuttle mechanism. No strong effects on the mass transfer were observed on the addition of n-heptane and ndodecane. The addition of butyraldehyde to water initially caused an increase in the gas-liquid interfacial area and a simultaneous decrease in the mass transfer coefficient, but this decrease disappears beyond the point of maximum solubility. Ultrasonic spectroscopy was shown to be a valuable tool in the determination of size distributions of different phases in multi-phase systems, and can therefore be used to perform additional research on this topic.