design the following bubble column reactor.

Sixty percent
carbon dioxide (CO2) in a flue gas is to be removed by
bubbling through a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
The reaction is mass-transfer limited. Calculate the reactor
size (length and diameter) necessary to remove 99.9% of
the carbon dioxide.
The flow rate of the flue gas is 0.05 m3/sec and the flow
rate of the sodium hydroxide is 0.001 m3/sec. The reactor
must operate in the bubbly flow regime, so please
recommend a type of sparger to use.

#1 Graphical Approach

On page 357 of the article by Shah, there is a plot of carbon dioxide conversion versus initial
superficial gas velocity (uGo). The results do vary with the height of the column. Using this graph,
we will size a tall reactor (HC = 2.36 m) and a short reactor (HC = 0.41 m).
For the 2.36 m tall reactor, we see that the conversion approaches 100% at a superficial
velocity (uGo) of about 0.04 m/s. This velocity is within the bubbly flow range. (The limit is usually
~ 0.05 m/s.) Knowing the volumetric gas flow rate (vGo) and the required superficial velocity of
our system, we calculate the diameter of our column:

A conversion of 99.9% in a 0.41 m tall column will require a superficial gas velocity of about
0.02 m/s. Once again, we calculate our diameter:
A comparison of the tall and short columns:

Symbol (units) Definition

Gas hold-up: fraction of the column volume that is gas

Gas hold-up equation coefficient

Gravitational acceleration
Diameter of bubble column

Fluid density

Gas-liquid surface tension

Diffusivity of CO2 in water

Dynamic viscosity

Kinematic viscosity (m/r)

Rate constant of mole transfer per interfacial area

Bubble-liquid interfacial area

Rate of mole transfer necessary to achieve conversion

Our first step is to select our correlations for gas hold-up (eG) and mole transfer (kLa). We have
chosen the following correlations from Akita and Yoshida (1973), because they are valid for
carbon dioxide and water systems at relatively large column heights and diameters:

The driving force for this liquid phase transfer is the difference between the equilibrium
concentration of carbon dioxide (CCO2*) and the actual liquid phase concentration of carbon
dioxide (CCO2), which we will assume is zero (the sodium hydroxide instantly neutralizes the
aqueous carbon dioxide). The rate of mole transfer per reactor volume can be written as: