1.

ARRANGEMENT OF BUBBLES

When bubbles group themselves they present two types of arrangements: the vertical one
and the horizontal one. The main factor responsible which determines the type of arrangement is the
bubble deformability: low deformable bubbles tend to be small and spherical and deformable bub-
bles tend to be large.

When bubbles flow along the duct, the smaller ones have a small and less developed wake
behind them, characterizing the potential flow (Shu Takagi, 2009) which results in a smaller pressure
drop in this region, thus the pressure gradient felt by the following bubble is less intense, so that the
bubble is not so strongly attracted due to the pressure drop and then the lift force ends up arranging
the bubbles horizontally. The large and deformable bubbles have a wide and well developed wake
which results in great pressure drop and due to the low pressure the neighbor bubbles are attracted
to this region, thus the bubbles show a vertical alignment.

1.1 NUMERICAL WORKS

Tagawa et.al (2013) performed numerical simulations for 16 bubbles and concluded that the
bubble deformability plays and important role in the bubble arrangement. A horizontal arrange-
ment is observed for small, almost spherical bubbles, when they are deformable they show an ir-
regular arrangement (vertical), as shown in the figure below:

Figure 1- Bubble Arrangements (Adapted from Tagawa et.al 2013).

Tagawa et al. states that Magnaudet and Mougin (2007) also achieved the same conclusion and Mer-
cado (2010) also states that other numerical works achieved similar conclusions.

1.2 EXPERIMENTAL WORKS

 Mercado (2010) performed an experimental study and concluded that the obtained experi-
mental results are in agreement with the bubble arrangement regarding the bubble deforma-
bility. The author concluded that the bubbles presented a preference for vertical alignment.
The author also states some differences between experimental results and the numerical ones
such as the vertical arrangement preference of the bubbles for higher gas holdups in the ex-
periments and that the horizontal arrangement tends to increase as the distance from the ref-
erence particle increases in the numeric simulations, and the opposite happened in the exper-
iments.

Figure 2 Angular pair correlation function for 0,74 % gas hold up and r*=40 (a) and r*= 15(b).
(Adapted from Mercado, 2010 ).

In the figure above r*=r/a and a= the mean bubble radius. It is possible to note that for a big-
ger r* the vertical arrangement prevails over the horizontal arrangement, contrary to the nu-
merical results, as pointed out by Mercado (2010)

2 METHODS FOR STUDYING THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BUBBLES

2.1 VORONOI ANALYSIS

The Voronoi Analysis is a spatial tessellation, in which each Voronoi cell is defined based on
the position of each particle: each point inside of a Voronoi cell is the closest point to the particle in
relation to the neighbor particles except for the border lines, vertices and facets. An example of the
Voroni cells is shown in figure 3:

Figure 3 - Voronoi cells ( Tagawa et.al, 2013).

2.2 PDF ANALYSIS

The Probability Density Function (PDF) relates the probability of a variable assume a determi-
nate value. The Gauss normal distribution is an example of a PDF, also known as normal distribution.

Another example, according to Tagawa et.al (2013), is that a distribution can well describe
the PDF of the Voronoi volumes of randomly distributed particles in three-dimension:

3125 4
() = exp(5)
24

where x=V/V* is Voronoi volume normalized by the mean volume V*. Figure 3b shows a random
distribution of particles and its corresponding Voronoi cells, figure 3a shows an arrangement where
the particles are more concentrated and figure 3c shows a regular arrangement. The PDFs for each
case are shown in the figure below, respectively:

Figure 4 PDF function for each case of the Voronoi analysis.

2.3 PAIR CORRELATION FUNCTION

The pair correlation function is related to the probability of finding the center of a particle a
given distance from the center of another particle. For short distances, this is related to how the par-
ticles are packed together.

According to Mercado (2010), the pair correlation function is calculated by:

(, ) = ( )
( 1)
=1 =1,

where V is the size of the total volume, Nb is the number of the bubbles within that volume, rij is the
vector linking the centers of bubble i and bubble j and r is a vector with magnitude r and orientation
, defined as the angle between the vertical unit vector linking the centers of bubbles i and j, as
shown in figure 5
 Figure 5 Definition of angle between a pair of neighbouring bubbles.

2.4 BOX COUNTING METHOD

The box counting method intends to find de fractal dimension. The fractal dimension of a
bounded set A in Euclidean n-space is defined as

log( )
= lim
0 1
log( )

where Nr is the least number of copies of A in the scale r. The sum of Nr must cover the domain A
entirely. For natural scenes their fractal are not ideal and deterministic, being necessary an estima-
tive of the dimension D and for that the box counting method is applied.

Consider an image of dimensions M x M as a 3D spatial surface where the coordinates (x,y)

denote the spatial location of each pixel and the third spatial coordinate z determines the pixel gray
level. In the box counting method the xy plane is divided into non-overlapping blocks of size s x s and
the scale of each block is r=s, being s an integer. Each box of the block has the dimension of s x s x s
where s is the height of each box and equals G.s/M and G is the total number of gray levels.

Figure 6 Box counting method. (Li et.al, 2009)

Let the boxes to be classified as 1, 2, , n and that the minimum and maximal gray levels fall into the
kth and lth boxes, respectively. Thus, the number of boxes using a scale r is counted:

(, ) = + 1

then considering the contribution of the other boxes throughout the domain A:

= (, )

Then the fractal dimension can be estimated by the least squares fit of log(Nr) versus log (1/r).

3 CORRELATIONS FOR THE BUBBLE RISE VELOCITIES IN BUBBLE COLUMNS

Kantarci et al. (2005) in his research in the literature regarding bubble column reactors summa-
rized some correlations for the bubble rise velocity

Table 1 Bubble rise velocities (Kantarci et al. 2005)

4 FLOW STRUCTURE IN BUBBLE COLUMNS

According to Katarci et.al (2005), the flow patterns for bubble columns can be classified in: ho-
mogeneous (bubbly flow), heterogeneous (churn-turbulent) and slug flow. Besagni and Inzoli (2016)
state the transition from homogenous flow to the heterogeneous flow, mentioning that when this
process occurs, there is the presence of a transition flow which is characterized for large flow macro-
structures with large eddies and widened bubble size distribution. According to Katarci et.al the gas
transition velocity depends on the column dimensions (diameter, hight) sparger design and proper-
ties of the system. Regarding the gas holdup, the studies of Thorat and Joshi (2004) concluded that
the critical gas holdup increases when the aspect ratio and sparger hole diameter decrease.
 Figure 7 Types of flows according to Katarci et.al (2005)

4.1 HOMOGENOUS (BUBBLY FLOW)

This flow is characterized by low gas superficial velocity (approximately lower than 5 cm/s),
relatively small and uniform bubble size and practically absence of breakup and coalescence. The
bubble size is almost fully determined by the sparger. Katarci et.al (2005).

Figure 8 Homogeneous flow (Besagni and Inzoli ,2016)

4.2 CHURN-TURBULENT

This flow occurs at higher gas superficial velocities and it is characterized by the deformation
of the homogeneous flow due to the turbulence of the gas bubbles and the liquid recirculation, pres-
ence of brake up and coalescence and a wider bubble size distribution. Katarci et.al (2005).

4.3 SLUG FLOW

This regime takes its name from the formation of bubble slugs when larger bubbles are stabi-
lized by the column wall. According to Katarci et al. (2005) this flow was observed only in laboratories
by means of small diameters tubes while working with high gas volumetric flow rate.
 Figure 9 Flow regime map for bubble columns

4.4 GAS HOLDUP AND SUPERFICAL GAS VELOCITY

The gas holdup is basically defined as the volume fraction of gas phase occupied by the gas
bubbles. The spatial variation of gas holdup is known as the gas holdup profile and it is an important
parameter for bubble columns. The gas holdup profile yields to pressure variation and thus liquid
recirculation and the latter plays an important role in mixing and heat and mass transfer, thus a bet-
ter understanding of predictions of gas holdup profiles would be an important factor for a better
bubble column scale-up. The factors that affect the gas holdup radial gradients are the superficial gas
velocity, column diameter, physical properties of the system and operating conditions. The superfi-
cial gas velocity is the average velocity of the gas that is sparged into the column which is expressed
as the volumetric flow rate divided by the cross-sectional area of the column. The superficial gas ve-
locity has a strong influence on the gas holdup and, according to Katarci et.al (2005), different studies
concluded that the gas holdup increases with increasing superficial gas velocity.

Figure 10 Gas holdup vs gas superficial gas holdup. The slope change indicates the flow transi-
tion (Besagni and Inzoli ,2016)
 Figure 11 Gas holdup vs superficial gas velocity (Belleg, 2014)

4.5 LIQUID PHASE PROPERTIES

According to Katarci et.al (2005) the liquid phase property has an impact on bubble formation
and/or coalescing tendencies and hence is an important factor affecting gas holdup. An increase in
liquid viscosity results in large bubbles and thus higher bubble rising velocities and lower gas holdup.
It is also reported that adding a small amount of a surface acting material (surfactant) to water, re-
sults in significantly higher gas holdup values. Moreover, the presence of electrolyte or impurities
also increases gas holdup.

The simulations of Tagawa et.al (2013) also shows the importance of the properties on bubble
formations. From the figure 12 one can notice that in the case b, where the surface tension is 10% of
the surface tension of the case a, the bubbles present an irregular clustering.

Figure 12 Bubble clustering changing the surface tension. (Adapted from Tagawa et.al (2013))

4.6 COLUMN DIMENSIONS

According to Shah et al. the effect of the column diameter becomes irrelevant for D > 15 cm for less
viscous liquids and for highly viscous liquids the effects become irrelevant for D > 30 cm. Katarci et
al. (2005) reported that the influence of the column height is negligible for heights above 1-3 m and
an aspect ratio larger than 5. The latter also reported that the small bubble gas holdup is independ-
ent of column diameter, while the large bubble gas holdup decreased with increasing column diame-
ter. As a result the overall holdup is reported to decrease with increasing column diameter due to
large bubble holdup.

4.7 GAS SPARGER

The sparger type is also an important parameter for bubble columns, since it has effect on the
bubble characteristics such as its size. Some common gas sparger types that are used in literature
studies are perforated plate, porous plate, membrane, ring type distributors and arm spargers. Luo et
al.(1999) reported that the sparger affects the gas holdup significantly at low gas velocities