Effect of air injection method on the performance of an air lift pump

Khalil, M.F.; Elshorbagy, Kamel A.; Kassab, Sadek Z.; Fahmy, Rana

doi:10.1016/s0142-727x(99)00051-x

Cited by 60 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…As air injected at the bottom of the riser pipe, the hydrostatic weight of the gas-liquid mixture inside the riser pipe becomes less than the surrounding liquid leading the total mixture to rise upwards through the discharge pipe. The pump has been also used for seawater samples collection (Tokar et al (1981)), underwater mining (Yoshinaga, and Sato (1996)), and in many applications including nuclear, oil production, and petrochemical processes for pumping corrosive, toxic or explosive materials (Khalil et al, (1999)). In addition, it has various implementations in aerating aquafarming pools (Parker and Suttle (1987) and Wurts et al (1994)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Air injection methods: The key to a better performance of airlift pumps

Ahmed

Aman

Badr

et al. 2016

Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Air injection methods: The key to a better performance of airlift pumps

Ahmed

Aman

Badr

et al. 2016

Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

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“…It has an edge over submerged mechanical pumps as it has no moving parts in contact with the fluid, hence it is simple in design and construction and requires minimal maintenance. Besides finding wide application in underground petroleum and water recovery, the air lift pump has also been used to handle hazardous or radioactive process fluids such as in nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, archeological artifact recovery, coal recovery in mine shafts, deep sea mining as well as incorporated into the design of bioreactors (Clark and Dabolt, 1986~ Zenz, 1993~ Tramba et al, 1995Lawniczak et al, 1999;Khalil et al, 1999). Two simple configurations of the air lift pump are depicted as follows: The submergence S is measured from the air or gas injector exit level to the free surface level of the pumping fluid.…”

Section: General Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This means that the total cross-sectional area for air flow on the 12-port injector (60.80 mm 2 ) is three times that of the 4-port injector (20.27 mm 2 ). On the other hand, other investigators (Morrison et ai., 1987;Khalil et al, 1999) who studied the effect of differing number of air ports on air lift pumping performance maintained the same total crosssectional area of the air ports i.e. the size of the air ports were reduced the larger the number of holes used.…”

Section: Effect Of Different Injectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For small values of riser to injector flow area ratio where entrance frictional losses were pronounced, pumping efficiency IIp increased with increasing ratio. On the other hand at higher flow area ratio, there was negligible effect on llv' Khalil et al (1999) investigated the performance of an air lift having a total length of 2 m and a diameter of 2.54 cm. Four submergence ratios (0.5 to 0.75) were used together with nine different air injectors having varying number of air ports from 1 to 48, each air injector having a total port cross-sectional area of 10 mm 2…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Non-Wetting Packed Bed Gas Scrubber

Chang

Swithenbank

Sharifi

2007

Process Safety and Environmental Protection

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SummaryPresent integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) systems demonstrate high system efficiency and impressive environmental performance, giving them an edge over conventional pulverised fuel power stations. A key area in the development of IGCCs is hot fuel gas clean-up (HGCU). Fuel gas cleaning at elevated temperatures reduces thermal efficiency losses associated with gas quenching in conventional cold gas cleaning methods. Current hot gas desulphurisation techniques focus on the use of regenerable metal oxide sorbents, however the long-term sorbent performance issues have yet to be fully addressed. A fresh and radical approach may provide the key to overcoming the inherent limitations associated with metal oxide sorbents. A molten tin irrigated packed bed scrubber adopted in this research project is one such innovative way forward in HGCU. The hot scrubber offers the prospect of a multicomponent clean-up device.High-temperature sulphur removal takes place via absorption of H 2 S (and COS) into molten tin whilst discrete molten tin droplets and rivulets on the packing surface act as solid particulate collectors.The primary aim of this research project was to investigate the workings of a small-scale roomtemperature packed bed scrubber operating under non-wetting flow conditions analogous to the molten tin irrigated scrubber. Water irrigation of low surface energy packings simulated the nonwetting flow of liquid metals. The air-water analogue of the liquid metal scrubber provided the platform for hydrodynamics (flow visualisation, flooding and liquid holdup), particulate removal and mass transfer studies under non-wetting flow conditions. The performance of a small air lift for water circulation through the column was also investigated. These cold studies offered insight into the operation and performance of the liquid metal hot scrubber.Prior to the cold gas scrubber studies, preliminary small-scale gasification tests on petroleum coke samples were performed to investigate the effect of molten tin on H 2 S in the product fuel gas. The tests provided actual experimental evidence of the possibility of sulphur removal by molten tin in a gasification environment.It was shown that the maximum possible size of a liquid droplet hanging from a non-wetting spherical solid surface could be predicted from the liquid surface tension and density based on force balance. The mobility of static holdup in a non-wettable packed bed has been demonstrated, this being due to the tendency for the liquid to form discrete droplets rather than spreading films. Existing flooding and liquid holdup correlations that hold for conventional wettable packed beds were shown to be inadequate where non-wetting systems were concerned. Summary hence alternative methods applicable to the latter were sought. The introduction of a non-wetting tendency factor based on the ratio of the solid critical surface tension to the liquid surface tension, enabled the flooding capacities of non-wetting systems including those of this study to be predict...

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“…However, decreasing the total orifice area caused an increase in the pressure loss and accordingly reduced the pump efficiency. The effects of air-injection method on the airlift pump performance were experimentally investigated by Mansour and Khalil [2] and by Khalil et al [3]. In their experimental study, they tested different injection designs under similar operating conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study of Airlift Pump Performance with S-Shaped Riser Tube Bend

Mahrous¹

2013

IJEM

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Airlift pump is a type of deep well pumps. Sometimes, it is used for removing water from mines or pumping slurry of sand and water or other solutions. The performance of airlift pump is affected by two sets of parameters; the geometrical and operational parameters. The geometrical parameters include pipe diameter, pump height, design of air injection system, and entrance geometry of the lifting pipe; while the operational parameters involve submergence ratio, conditions of injected air, and nature of lifted phase. Conventionally, airlift pump with bent riser tube is less efficient than that with vertically straight riser tube. However, in real life situations, the use of local riser tube bend or flexible riser tubes is considerably unavoidable. This work investigates experimentally the effects of local bends of the riser tube on the airlift pump performance. A series of experiments on a model airlift pump with three different riser tube configurations, based on the vertical position of local bends, were carried out. The local bends are in the form of an S-shaped like duct. The results showed that setting local bends of the riser tube near the air injection zone improves the airlift pump performance. However, improvement obtained in airlift pump performance is being negligible and, thus, the position of local bend of riser tube does not contribute to improvements in the performance of airlift pump.

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Effect of air injection method on the performance of an air lift pump

Cited by 60 publications

References 16 publications

Air injection methods: The key to a better performance of airlift pumps

Air injection methods: The key to a better performance of airlift pumps

A Non-Wetting Packed Bed Gas Scrubber

Experimental Study of Airlift Pump Performance with S-Shaped Riser Tube Bend

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