US-India Cooperative Research: Investigation of Bubble Size Distribution Profiles in Gas-Liquid Systems

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

0115297 Ramkrishna Description: This award supports a US-India cooperative research project entitled Investigation of Bubble Size Distribution Profiles in Gas-Liquid Systems. The collaborators are Professor D. Ramkrishna, Department of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University and Professor J.B. Joshi, Department of Chemical Technology, Bombay University. They will make a systematic investigation of the effect that bubble population balance may have on prediction of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations in gas-liquid flow. Such calculations are usually done with an assumed single bubble size and coalescence, and break-up phenomena and resulting bubble size distributions are ignored. Scope: This collaboration will combine the US investigator's expertise on bubble dynamics, break-up and coalescence, and population balance with Professor Joshi's experimental facilities needed to measure model predictions. Together they can advance the current state of the art of gas-liquid flows significantly. The US and Indian graduate students involved in this project will have the advantage of exposure to the best available thinking in the field of gas-liquid bubbly flows. This research could have a profound impact on design and scale-up of gas-liquid contactors, which are common to numerous chemical processes and are of great technological and economic importance.