The effect of gravity on bubble–particle collisions in turbulence

Bubble–particle collisions in turbulence are key to the froth flotation process that is widely employed industrially to separate hydrophobic from hydrophilic materials. In our previous study (Chan et al., 2023 J. Fluid Mech. 959, A6), we elucidated the collision mechanisms and critically reviewed the collision models in the no-gravity limit. In reality, gravity may play a role since, ultimately, separation is achieved through buoyancy-induced rising of the bubbles. This effect has been included in several collision models, which have remained without a proper validation thus far due to a scarcity of available data. We therefore conduct direct numerical simulations of bubbles and particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulence with various Stokes, Froude and Reynolds numbers, and particle density ratios using the point-particle approximation. Generally, turbulence enhances the collision rate compared with the pure relative settling case by increasing the collision velocity. Surprisingly, however, for certain parameters the collision rate is lower with turbulence compared with without, independent of the history force. This is due to turbulence-induced bubble–particle spatial segregation, which is most prevalent at weak relative gravity and decreases as gravitational effects become more dominant, and reduced bubble slip velocity in turbulence. The existing bubble–particle collision models only qualitatively capture the trends in our numerical data. To improve on this, we extend the model by Dodin & Elperin (2002 Phys. Fluids 14, 2921–2924) to the bubble–particle case and found excellent quantitative agreement for small Stokes numbers when the history force is negligible and segregation is accounted for.