Some Aspects of the Hydrodynamics of Bubble Columns

Bubble columns have been the object of much attention these last 20 years; it has become a kind of benchmarking reactor for both advanced measuring techniques and for CFD. However, the classical approaches are still of interest, and improving these reactors is still a field of research. In the present article, first some reminders on classical approaches of bubble columns and airlift reactors are presented with recent applications, then the different aspects of CFD as applied to bubble columns are presented, then highlights on some features specific to non-Newtonian fluids are given, finally some attempts to improve bubble columns are presented.

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