Effect of Bottom Baffles and Air Inlet Position on Mass Transfer Performance of a Water-Sparged Aerocyclone

Water-sparged Aerocyclone (WSA) is a new type of gas-liquid mass transfer equipment with a coupling field of liquid jet with gas cyclone, which can be widely used in wastewater treatment process. To further optimize the structural design of WSA, the effect of bottom baffles and air inlet position on mass transfer performance of WSA was comparatively studied by air stripping of ammonia from wastewater. The results indicated that the separation space configuration of a WSA affects its mass transfer performances. Under the same condition, the axial air inlet position has no effect on mass transfer performance, but moving air inlet position downward could reduce the gas pressure drop in WSA by about 10%, which was probably caused by abating the friction loss between the gas cyclone and the wall. In case of high air inlet velocity and low liquid flow rate, the bottom baffles in the WSA could intensify the mixing effect between gas and liquid phases, thereby improving the mass transfer performance, and the effect is more pronounced with the increase of air inlet velocity. The results could be used as a guide for the design of WSA with excellent mass transfer performance