Faculty of engineering

Unit Operations: Axial Dispersion

Jan Poppe, Vittorio Gargiulo, Ravi Sharma

December 2, 2016

Contents
1 Introduction

2 Axial Dispersion Analysis

2.1 Effect of flow rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Effect of dp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 Effect of packing shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3
3
5
6

3 Conclusion

Introduction

Dispersion plays an important part, for example, in contaminant transport in

ground water flows, in miscible displacement of oil and gas and in reactant and
product transport in packed bed reactors. The dispersion model is also used to
describe nonideal tubular reactors. In this model, there is an axial dispersion
of the material, which is governed by an analogy to Ficks law of diffusion, superimposed on the flow as shown in the figure 1. To illustrate how dispersion
affects the concentration profile in a tubular reactor we consider the injection
of a tracer pulse i.e., He gas. And due to the dispersion pulse gets broaden as it
moves down the reactor and becomes less concentrated. To better understand
how the pulse broadens, we refer to the concentration peaks in two different
time. And we see that there is a concentration gradient on both sides of the
peak causing molecules to diffuse away from the peak and thus broaden the
pulse. The pulse broadens as it moves through the reactor.

Figure 1: Concentration profiles (a) without and (b) with dispersion.

In this lab, axial dispersion phenomenon in a packed columns filled with
different sizes and shapes packing, is studied to elect the best packing at low
flow rate possible. More in detail, the axial dispersion effects that are related to
the injection of helium gas which will progressively disperse as it moves through
the columns, will be analyzed.

Axial Dispersion Analysis

The experiment is repeated few times changing the air flow rate,the packings
sizes and the packings shapes (passing from column 1 to column 7) in order to
observe their effect on their effect on the dispersion effect.

2.1

Effect of flow rate

Here below, it is possible to observe the results achieved for the column 1 feed
with different air flow rate, 500 l/h,400 l/h,300 l/s,200 l/s,100 l/s, respectively.
What one would expect, is that the axial dispersion will decrease with an increasing flow rate because more speed, means less time to disperse in the axial
direction. However, the following results will contradict this, and it will be
shown why.

Figure 2: Effect of the flow rate on the axial dispersion

First of all, its obvious in graph 2 that the axial dispersion goes, somewhat
exponentially, up with the flow rate. So why could this be happening? There is
no such thing as the ideal world, so there are some conditions to be taken into
account. A plug thats sent through a column, will never remain in its shape
as a plug. The no-slip condition at the walls make that over time, the plug will
be deformed to a more parabolic shape. The higher the flow rate, the more
parabolic and thus the more dispersion will take place axially.
In table 1 the corresponding variables with the graphs, were calculated.

Table 1: Measurements small cylinder

F lowRate( hl )
5.00E+02
4.00E+02
3.00E+02
2.00E+02
1.00E+02

Re
4.53E+01
3.62E+01
2.72E+01
1.81E+01
9.05E+00

Dax ( ms )
1.38E-03
8.29E-04
4.95E-04
2.29E-04
1.64E-04

Pe
9.13E-01
1.21E+00
1.41E+00
1.73E+00
1.60E+00

Figure 3: Effect of the flow rate on the Peclet number

The figure 3 shows a bit behavior thats a bit more complex. For Peclet going to
infinite, a plug flow is approached, and the other way around, for Peclet going
to zero the behavior will be that one of a stirred reactor. For a higher flow rate,
Pe will go down, which is in accordance with graph 2. However, a slight increase
is also encountered at first. This can be explained by the fact that the Peclet is
depending on more variables than just the flow rate. It looks like a flow rate of
over 200 hl is enough to have a decisive influence on the sign of the gradient of
the function.

2.2

Effect of dp

Here below, it is possible to observe the results achieved for the column 1,column
2,column 3 and column 4, for an air flow rate of 100 l/s. The aim is to analyze
the effect of packings sizes on the axial dispersion effect of helium through the
column.

Figure 4: Effect of Packing size (dp )

Table 2: Measurements small cylinder

P ackingDiameter(m)
3.03E-02
6.06E-03
1.00E-02
1.21E-02

Re
9.05E+00
1.81E+01
2.99E+01
3.60E+01

Dax ( ms )
1.64E-04
1.87E-04
4.29E-04
7.50E-04

Pe
1.60E+00
2.56E+00
1.74E+00
1.12E+00

Data observation shows how the effect of packings size is fundamental on the
axial dispersion. It is possible to observe how increasing the packing diameters,
passing from column 1 to column 4,the Peclet number is first increasing up to the
a maximum value of 2,56 for column 2 and then it decreases till a minimum value
of 1,12 for column 4. This shows how the diameter of the spherical particles does
not have a proportional relation with the dispersion . More in detail it is evident
that increasing the packing diameter the route of the flow through the column
becomes more and more tortuous,so helium will spend more and more time to
pass through it,so the dispersion is higher. Also, it is necessary to consider the
free space among the packing and open spaces near the walls. Higher diameter
packing involves a higher free space among two adjacent packing and a higher

free space between packing and the wall since the packing is less compact. It
means that the gas flow turbulence will increase, increasing the dispersion too.
So the gas flow will spend more time to pass through the column. And due to
this, a high gas turbulence is responsible for a reduction of the Peclet Number,
moving to a mixed flow behavior.

2.3

Effect of packing shape

Here below, it is possible to observe the results achieved for the column 4,
column 6 and column 7 for an air flow rate of 100 l/s. The aim is to analyze
the effect of packings shapes on the axial dispersion effect of helium through
the column.
Column 4 is characterized by the spherical particles, meanwhile Column 6 is
characterized by Rashig packing type and Column 7 is characterized by Berl
packing type. In all the cases equivalent diameter is of 0,0125m. The results
obtained from the experiment are shown table below.
Table 3: Effect of void fraction.
P ackingshape
Spherical particles
Raschig particles
Bern saddles

V oidf raction
4.00E-01
9.30E-01
6.90E-01

Re
3.60E+01
1.55E+01
2.09E+01

Dax ( ms )
7.50E-04
5.76E-04
3.48E-04

Pe
1.12E+00
8.85E-01
1.74E+00

As it can be observed from the results shown in the table 3 and figure 5 the
best shape packing for obtaining a plug flow is the Berl saddles, as this particle
shows the maximum Peclet number. Although the spherical particles can also
be used for the plug flow, but the Raschig particles are not recommended, as
they shows quite a less Peclet number. This may be due to the fact that, upon
packing the raschig particles inside the column, some of them can be placed in
the horizontal form and the injected material, i.e. He gas, may take more time
to get diffused out of the particles. Due to which, it is not recommended in case
plug flow is needed.

Figure 5: Effect of packing shape

Conclusion

The influence of the flow rate on the dispersion phenomena turned out to be
contra-intuitive. However this could be explained by assuming that the imperfect conditions at the wall have a sufficient influence on the flow to justify this,
and that the measured results are thus non-ideal. In case of diameter of the
particles, three parameters that should be taken in concern are the route of the
gas flow through free path between the particles, open spaces between the particles and open spaces near the walls which get affected by the diameter of the
particles. And finally in case of the void fraction or the packing of the shape,
depending on the shape, better plug flow in the column can be obtained. And
through the study made during the lab session, it can be concluded that the
dispersion model is quite useful in describing non ideal tubular reactors.