The main topic of this study is the experimental measurement and mathematical modelling of global gas hold-up and bubble size distribution in an aerated stirred vessel using the population balance method. The air-water system consisted of a mixing tank of diameter T = 0.29 m, which was equipped with a six-bladed Rushton turbine. Calculations were performed with CFD software CFX 14.5. Turbulent quantities were predicted using the standard k-ε turbulence model. Coalescence and breakup of bubbles were modelled using the homogeneous MUSIG method with 24 bubble size groups. To achieve a better prediction of the turbulent quantities, simulations were performed with much finer meshes than those that have been adopted so far for bubble size distribution modelling. Several different drag coefficient correlations were implemented in the solver, and their influence on the results was studied. Turbulent drag correction to reduce the bubble slip velocity proved to be essential to achieve agreement of the simulated gas distribution with experiments. To model the disintegration of bubbles, the widely adopted breakup model by Luo & Svendsen was used. However, its applicability was questioned.

Controlling the bubble size is a major concern in enhancing transport performance in gas-liquid systems. The role of wettability of diffuser surface on bubble size is the subject of the current work. The study inspects the contact angle of a set of liquids on HP ceramic diffusers using the Washburn method. The results demonstrate that organic liquids like toluene, methanol–water (1:1 v/v), ethanol– water (1:1 v/v) and decane have small contact angles of 12.9°, 37.5°, 24.4° and 22.5° respectively. Water has a lower wettability than the organic compounds where the contact angle was about 67.4°. The effect of wettability of the bubble size is investigated by measuring the size of air bubble produced using the same diffuser material. The results of bubble size measurement demonstrates that with liquids of small contact angle, i.e. good wetting properties, small bubble sizes are produced in comparison with liquids with a higher contact angle. The study demonstrates the viability of Washburn method in characterization of wettability of porous diffuser, which was verified by measuring the bubble size produced. A high reduction in bubble size can be obtained by a carefully chosen diffuser material that provides better wettability.

Feasibility of a model of gas bubble break-up and coalescence in an air-lift column enabling determination of bubble size distributions in a mixer with a self-aspirating impeller has been attempted in this paper. According to velocity measurements made by the PIV method with a self-aspirating impeller and Smagorinski’s model, the spatial distribution of turbulent energy dissipation rate close to the impeller was determined. This allowed to positively verify the dependence of gas bubble velocity used in the model, in relation to turbulent energy dissipation rate. Furthermore, the range of the eddy sizes capable of breaking up the gas bubbles was determined. The verified model was found to be greatly useful, but because of the simplifying assumptions some discrepancies of experimental and model results were observed.