International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276

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International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhff

Two-phase pressure drop and flooding characteristics in a

horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate column
Pouria Amani a, Jaber Safdari b,∗, Hossein Abolghasemi a, Mohammad H. Mallah b,
Amin Davari a
a
School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box: 11155-4563, Tehran, Iran
b
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, P.O. Box: 11365-8486, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, an experimental investigation on the two-phase pressure drop has been carried out in a
Received 19 September 2016 novel class of extractors entitled "horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate column". The liquid-liquid sys-
Revised 29 November 2016
tems used in this work are toluene–water, n-butyl acetate–water and butanol-water. The effects of op-
Accepted 8 January 2017
erating parameters including the dispersed and continuous phases flow rates and pulsation intensity on
Available online 1 February 2017
total pressure drop under and at the flooding points have been studied. It is achieved that the pressure
Keywords: drop is strongly affected by the continuous and dispersed flow rates as well as pulsation intensity. In
Pressure drop fact, the column experiences higher pressure drop with an increase in the values of Af, Q c and Q d . The
Flooding point interfacial tension is a physical property which has significant impact on pressure drop. Two theoretical-
Horizontal-vertical pulsed plate column experimental correlations for prediction of pressure drop under and at the flooding in the column, and
one correlation for maximum throughput are proposed by using dimensional analysis method with Av-
erage Absolute Relative Error (AARE) values of 2.15%, 3.56 and 6.85% respectively. Moreover, a particular
approach for preventing flooding in pulsed extraction columns is developed based on evaluation of pres-
sure drop through the column length.
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Solvent extraction is one of the important processes of energy
and mass transfer with wide application in petroleum and petro-
chemical industries, metal salt extraction, pharmaceutical indus-
tries, metallurgy and other areas (M.W.P., 1956). Various types of
agitation and internals have been presented for liquid-liquid ex-
traction columns over many years (Lewis, 2007). In particular, the
efficiency of liquid-liquid contactors is primarily dependent on the
degree of turbulence in the system and interfacial area available
for mass transfer. Accordingly, pulsed columns have a clear advan-
tage over other mechanical contactors due to their high separation
efficiency by increasing the drop breakage and coalescence rate
along with decreasing axial mixing (Jaradat et al., 2011; Peŕez et al.,
2005; Samani et al., 2014; Walzel, 2013). Pulsed columns for the
first time were introduced by Van Dijck (1935) and nowadays are
extensively used in various industries because of high efficiency
and low space requirements as well as the fact that the pulsing
unit can be remote from columns. Pulsed extraction columns are
designed and built in packed, plate and disc and doughnut form. In
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jsafdari@aeoi.org.ir (J. Safdari).
another classification, the columns are divided into two major cat-
egories: vertical columns and horizontal columns. Vertical columns
meet the needs for various industrial applications, but when space
constraints are concerned it is required to use the horizontal type.
In addition, mass transfer efficiency in both types of the columns
is comparable (Hanson, 2013). The main features of horizontal and
vertical types of extraction columns in identical conditions have
been studied by different investigators (Hussain et al., 1988; Logs-
dail and Thornton, 1959; Melnyk et al., 1992; Procházka and Hafez,
1972; Vdovenko and Kulikov, 1966). The horizontal-vertical pulsed
sieve-plate column is a new type of extraction columns that its
main advantages and disadvantages in comparison to vertical and
horizontal types in industrial conditions can be presented as fol-
lows:
1. Throughput of one is more than horizontal type and less than
vertical type.
2. The required surface area and installation height for this type
as indoor are less than those in horizontal and vertical types.
3. In horizontal-vertical columns, the amount of energy consumed
to create pulsation will be a value between that of vertical
and horizontal columns and for the same condition (structure)
flooding occurs earlier in the horizontal column due to lack of
use of maximum force of gravity caused by the density differ-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2017.01.003
0142-727X/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276
ences. For horizontal-vertical columns due to the increase of
this driving force, flooding will occur at higher flow rates than
those for horizontal types.
An extraction column should provide high efficiency of separa-
tion and a large throughput. However, indefinitely increasing the
flow rate of the phases is not possible and the amount of one
phase which can be dispersed in another phase has a maximum
value. By exceeding the flooding points, dispersed phase drops are
no longer able to move against the flow of the continuous phase
and operation of the column becomes unstable. Consequent accu-
mulation of the dispersed phase appears at initial section of the
column and blocks the counter-current flow or the phases inver-
sion may be observed (Rincón-Rubio et al., 1993; Torab-Mostaedi
et al., 2012). Therefore, the maximum volumetric capacity of the
column, which is called flooding throughput, plays an important
role in the design of an extraction column (Berger and Walter,
1985). A survey of previous investigations on flooding velocity is
presented in section 2.
In all extraction columns, there is a need to predict design pa-
rameters such as pressure drop in order to determine the operating
status and provide information about energy consumption and the
required dimension of the column for particular purposes. Noh and
Baird (1984) and Rao and Baird (1988) studied the pressure drop
for water flow in a 5-cm-diameter reciprocating plate column with
cocurrent and countercurrent flow respectively and evaluated the
variation of mass transfer with pressure drop under well-agitated
conditions. Thornton (1957) proposed a correlation for pressure
drop with no flow under sinusoidal pulsation of a single phase in
a perforated plate columns as follows:
  
ρ 1 − α 2 dy 2
P = n
2Cd2 α 2 dt
where ρ represents the flow density, α is fractional free area of
plates, Cd = 0.6 denoted discharge coefficient, n is the number of
plates which can calculated from L/h and dy/dt instantaneous flow
velocity.
Jealous and Johnson (1955) proposed a correlation for power
required for pulsation in a liquid-liquid extraction column by de-
termination of static head of the liquid systems, the deceleration
and acceleration forces along with the fractional losses. The equa-
tion of Thornton (1957) can be also deduced from the expres-
sion of Jealous and Johnson (1955), if considering only fractional
losses. In fact, according to what has been found by Noh and Baird
(1984) and Harikrishnan and Varma (1992) for the commonly-used
combinations of agitation intensity and plate geometry, the pres-
sure drop fractional component is more than 2 orders of magni-
tude greater than the inertial component. The general expression
of Jealous and Johnson (1955) is also used as a basis by other re-
searchers such as Hafez and Baird (1978).
Harikrishnan and Varma (1992) proposed an expression for
pressure loss in terms of the relative velocity between liquid phase
and plates, in which by considering no flow, their correlation will
become identical to Eq. (1).
However, it should be noted that no pressure recovery down-
stream of the plate is considered in above-mentioned correlations.
Accordingly, a modified expression is proposed by Miyauchi and
Oya (1965) in order to take into account the pressure recovery in
each compartment of the column as follows:
  
ρ (1 − α ) 1 − α 2 dy 2
P = n
2Cd2 dt
In another work, Hafez and Procházka (1974) by studying the
pressure drop in a reciprocating plate column, proposed an empir-
ical correlation for fractional losses in turbulent regime as follows:
267
 
nρc 1.5 − 2.5α + α 2 + 1−ββ2 +
2
0.316s  2
dRe0.25 dy
P = (3)
2α 2 dt
where s represents the plate thickness, Reo denotes the velocity in
the open area, d is the diameter of plate hole, and β = 0.65 is the
contraction coefficient.
Din et al. (2010) presented the following expression for pressure
drop in pulsed sieve-plate extraction column by modeling perfo-
rated plates as a porous medium with 25% fractional free area in
computational fluid dynamics (CFD):
P = 107 × V − 2190.5 (4)
Based on Eq. (4), it is surprisingly obtained that the pressure
drop is linear function of the velocity V.
Stockfleth and Brunner (2001) by using modified models from
normal pressure operation, correlated the dry pressure drop along
with the dispersed phase holdup below the loading point in a
countercurrent randomly packed column with Raschig rings and
Berl saddles. Yang et al. (1986) investigated the pressure drop, gas
holdup and interfacial area in a reciprocating-plate Karr extraction
column and revealed that the frictional loss is closely related to the
circulation of liquid phase through the column. Jamialahmadi et al.
(2005) experimentally and theoretically studied the pressure drop
for single- and two-phase flow through unconsolidated porous me-
dia. They described the single-phase pressure drop using the con-
servation equations and the Kozeny-Carman equation and also pro-
posed a correlation for prediction of two-phase pressure drop and
gas holdup. Khooshechin et al. (2013) have studied the two-phase
pressure drop in a pulsed packed column with ceramic packs of
Raschig ring type of 0.63 cm in diameter for three liquid-liquid sys-
tems and suggested the modified form of the correlation of Varma
(1)
et al. (1997) to calculated the two-phase frictional pressure drop in
packed columns as follows:
 σ 0.8446  μ4 g 0.187
Pf = 229.15Re−0 .6595 .612
Re0m,d d
m,c
μcVc ρc σ 3
 0.1579  1
(A f )4 ρc ρc LVc2
× (5)
gσ 2d p
Liu (2014) have studied the negative frictional pressure drop in
vertical two-phase flow and revealed that the energy dissipation
is associated with a buoyancy-like term as well as the frictional
pressure drop in vertical two-phase flow. In another study, Angelov
and Gourdon (2012) studied on the pressure drop in a pulsed discs
& doughnuts column and calculated local pressures by resolving of
turbulent flow model based on Reynolds equations coupled with
k–ε model of turbulence.
(2A f )2 Lρc
P = 0.21 α −2.80 h−0.85lnα−2.74 (6)
D
The experimental data of Angelov and Gourdon (2012) can also
be used for determination of pressure drop and developing a cor-
relation for pressure drop as a function of pulsation parameters,
inter-plate distance and fractional free area. Moreover, in many
research the application of CFD in measurement of the pressure
drop in extraction columns is investigated (Fernandes et al., 2009;
Langewisch and Buongiorno, 2015). One of the applications of mea-
surement of pressure drop in extraction columns is to determine
the flooding points (Robbins and Cusack, 1997), which is discussed
in Section 2.1.
(2) The objective of this work is the examination of hydrodynamic
behavior of a novel horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate column
(HVPSPC), including pressure drop and its applicability for prevent-
ing flooding in this column. Moreover, new correlations are devel-
oped for prediction of pressure drop under and at flooding points
268 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276
and a correlation is proposed to predict flooding points in terms of
operating variables and physical properties of the systems.
2. Previous work on flooding
Flooding in pulsed columns may be defined as the flow con-
dition when the fluid of one phase entering at one end of the
column is not able to leave at the opposite end and must exit
through the effluent line intended for the second phase (Ragland
et al., 1989; Sege and Woodfield, 1954). It can occur either due
to inadequate pulsation in which plates act as a physical barrier
in prohibiting counter-current flow of the two phases, or due to
passing the upper limit of the pulsation in which mechanical agi-
tation becomes excessive and emulsion flooding occurs (Smoot et
al., 1959).
The flooding in pulsed columns is a function of different ge-
ometrical and operating parameters. For example, increasing hole
diameter, fractional free area, and plate spacing delays flooding
in the column and leads to an increase of maximum throughput
along with a reduction in shear forces on drops, thereby influenc-
ing the mass transfer efficiency of the extraction column. Regard-
ing to operating parameters, the pulsation intensity (Af) and the
direction of mass transfer have strong impact on flooding. Increas-
ing the pulsation intensity leads to an increase of the approach to
flooding. Moreover, mass transfer from dispersed phase to contin-
uous phase produces larger drops due to Marangoni effect which
leads to a reduction of the hold-up and consequently delays the
flooding tendency of the column as well as increasing maximum
throughput (Komasawa and Ingham, 1978; Tribess and Brunello,
1998). Conversely, the column shows the opposite manner in the
case of the reverse direction of mass transfer (Bender et al., 1979;
Berger and Walter, 1985).
Numerous correlations have been proposed for prediction of
the flooding in extraction columns (Yadav and Patwardhan, 2008).
Thornton (1957) and Logsdail and Thornton (1957) have conducted
a comprehensive study of flooding for six different liquid systems.
Thornton (1957) has investigated the impact of plate spacing, plate
geometry (i.e., hole-size and fractional free area), and the pulse
wave-form on the flooding points of a pulsed plate column. He has
differentiated the slip velocity (Vs ) relation to achieve the flood-
ing capacity of the column in terms of the dispersed and the con-
tinuous phase velocities and derive a correlation to determine the
characteristic velocity (V0 ). It should be noted that his presented
correlation did not include the variation of the physical properties
of the continuous phase.
Smoot et al. (1959) by using 665 flooding experiments of four
previous investigations, have developed a correlation for emul-
sion flooding, in which the majority of dimensionless groups were
identical to those derived by Logsdail and Thornton (1957). How-
ever, he did not proposed a criteria to classify the operating
regimes of the used experimental data. In addition, McAllister et
al. (1967) have revealed that the correlations proposed by Smoot
et al. (1959) and Thornton (1957) give very similar curves of mea-
sured (Vc + Vd )f versus Af.
McAllister was the first researcher who have represented the
fundamental relationship between the pulsation intensity and the
limiting throughput which is called flooding curve. Moreover,
Kagan et al. (1965) have described this curve as a parabolic curve
which starts at the origin of the coordinates.
As achieved by Kagan et al. (1965), the maximum capacity of a
pulsed plate column declines with increasing in the ratio of phases
flow rate (Vd /Vc ). They have also indicated that the pulsation inten-
sity can be used instead of the frequency and amplitude individu-
ally for describing the behavior of the extraction column. Accord-
ing to their results, in mixer-settler regime, an increase in the pul-
sation intensity leads to an increase in the capacity of the column,
reaching to a maximum value and then decreasing.
Berger and Walter (1985) calculated flooding for different sys-
tems as well as different geometrical parameters. Based on their
observations, as the ratio of phases flow rate (Vd /Vc ) rises, the peak
of the flooding curve declines, taking place at smaller frequencies.
It can be due to the fact that an increase in the flow rate of the
dispersed phase, provides more fluidic resistance to the flow of the
continuous phase flow rate. With respect to the interfacial tension,
smaller drops are formed in a smaller interfacial tension, which
can easily pass through perforations. Accordingly, interfacial ten-
sion along with the phase ratio plays an important role to pre-
dict the maximum frequency where flooding happens. However,
the fractional free area of plates is ineffective on fm . Berger and
Walter (1985) by comparing the correlations developed by Smoot
et al. (1959) and McAllister et al. (1967) with their own experi-
mental data, have found that these correlations are able to neither
predict the shape of the flooding curve nor provide accurate pre-
diction in the emulsion regime.
Tribess and Brunello (1998) studied the impact of mass trans-
fer (d→c) on the flooding behavior of pulsed columns. According
to their results, the maximum capacity of the column increases
in the presence of mass transfer and consequently hold-up occurs
at higher flow rates. They also showed that the maximum capac-
ity of the column increases with plate spacing due to the reduc-
tion of shear forces by increasing the plate spacing. Furthermore,
they modified the correlation of Berger and Walter (1985) to cover
the influence of mass transfer along with plate spacing. In Table 1
research that are implemented so far to calculate the velocity of
flooding are listed.
2.1. Measurement methods for the flooding points
Measurement methods for the flooding points can be derived
from the events in the swarm of drops on flooding. As flooding oc-
curs, the dispersed phase accumulates at initial sections of the col-
umn and internals act as a barrier for the counter-current flow. At
this time, the phase reversal would happen which called flooding.
The first approach was determination of flooding points through
direct measurement of holdup. In fact, holdup was measured at
two particular steady state condition in the constant operating pa-
rameters; if two holdups were different or in other word experi-
enced an increasing trend through the time, it could be concluded
that flooding occurs in the column. However, flooding points can
be recognized in many different ways. Some of these methods have
mentioned as follows:
1. In glass column, the accumulation of the dispersed phase in the
initial parts of the column during the flooding can be visually
observed. For more accurate measurement regarding this point,
the assessment of the behavior of drops is required.
2. Measuring discharge rate of both phases is another method. In
steady state condition, mass flow rates of the continuous and
the dispersed phases during experiments are constant values,
but because of the fact that after reaching the flooding points,
the counter-current is disrupted, the output rate of the dis-
persed phase reduces and the continues phase output rate in-
creases. Such measuring of flow rate is a highly sensitive signal
for the beginning of the flooding.
3. The third method is an indirect method of measuring the flood-
ing points by differential pressure. At the flooding points, in
spite of constant operating conditions, pressure is continuously
rising. Differential pressure measurement is an accurate and
rapid diagnostic method for measuring the flooding points. It
is commonly used for the columns in which the drop patterns
cannot be observed (Robbins and Cusack, 1997). When accumu-
 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276 269

Table 1
Equations provided by previous researchers to predict the velocity of flooding in pulsed extraction columns.

Reference correlation Remark

- It can been used for calculating emulsion flooding. Vc f = V0 (1 − 2ϕ f )(1 − ϕ f )2 (Thornton, 1957)
- This correlation does not cover the influence of the physical Vdf = 2V0 ϕ f 2 (1 − ϕ f )
0.5
properties of the phases and geometrical and operating parameters ϕ f = ( (R +8R ) −3R
2

4(1−R )
)
of the column on flooding due to the fact that the proposed
R = ( VVdc ) f
correlation considers holdup at flooding as a function of flow ratio
of the two phases only.
- It is derived from 665 experiments of four investigators and can (Vc f +Vdf )μc (Smoot et al., 1959)
σ =
been used only for calculating emulsion flooding.
0.527 VVc −0.014 ρρc 0.63 ( ερmc σμ4c )−0.207
5
( ) ( )
- Total flooding velocity was found to be independent of the d
σ ρc 0.458 D 0.0 gμ4c
column diameter. × dμ( 2 ) d
( ) (
ρc σ 4 )0.81 ( μμdc )−0.20
c
π 2 ( 1 −α 2 )
- Based on this correlation, the required column diameter can be εm = 2α 2 C 2 h Af 3 ( )
0
calculated from the following relationship, in which F is the
fraction of flooding velocity and W is the design capacity of the
column.

D( f t. ) = π F (V4cW+V )
d f

- C0 is orifice constant and is equal to 0.6.

- It is obtained from 1106 data points without considering mass (McAllister et al., 1967)
ln( Vcc +Vd
+ d
) = −3.471 + 0.2568lnX
transfer and it is applicable only for small hole diameter such that
−0.07194(ln(X ) )2 + 0.006191(ln(X ) )3
there is no flow due to density difference.
−1.034 ln(Y ) − 0.09096(ln(Y ) )2
- It can been used in the insufficient-pulsation region of flooding.
−0.0 0 08898(ln(Y ) )3 + 0.1424 ln( VVc )
- The equation is supposedly able to represent the complete d
−0.1807 ln( Ah ) + 0.07198 ln( YX )
flooding curve as a closed line, including the upper and lower
X = ρρ dπα2 g , Y = μασ c πv
2
flooding limits (Groenier et al., 1966). c M
√
- Physical significance of the different terms in the equation is 1 −λ 2
πD = 5π A f [ π −arcsin λ − λ], f t/hr
given in a report by Groenier et al (Groenier et al., 1966). 2
√
1 −λ 2
πc = 5π A f [ π +arcsin λ + λ], f t/hr
2

πM2 = 12 (πD2 + πC2 ), ( f t/h )2

πv = 12 (π√ D + πc ), f t/hr
c = A f [ √1 − λ2 + λ( π2 + arcsin λ)], f t/h
d = A f [ 1 − λ2 − λ( π2 − arcsin λ )], f t/h
λ = V5c fπ+AVfdf
2
- The first equation is presented for ascending part of flooding Vd
gD
= 2.5 × 10−2 ( VVc )1.1 ( DA )1.0 ( f gD )1.1 ( Dh )0.5 (Kagan et al., 1965)
d
curve and the second equation is presented for descending part of Vd
= 3.0 × 10 ( V ) ( D )
2
( g ) (D)
−9 Vc 1.1 A −1.75 f D −1.3 h 0.5
gD d
flooding curve.
- These correlations don’t cover the impact of variation of
physicochemical properties of the liquid systems.
- The applicability of the equations is limited to liquid systems
which have physical properties similar to kerosene–water.
- Studies have been done in absence of mass transfer. (Vc f + Vdf )m = (6.81 × 10−3 + 0.7047σ − 15.222σ 2 ) (Berger and Walter, 1985)
- The correlation does not cover the influence of mass transfer and × (1 − 4.55α + 3.247α 2 ) + 0.1778 ln( VVc )
d
plate spacing on flooding behavior of the pulsed columns. + 0.0437(ln( VVc ) )2
d
- fm is the maximum frequency at which flooding occurs and it is f m = 0.4908 + 1.11 × 102 σ − 1.80 × 103 σ 2
highly influenced by interfacial tension. − (3.44 × 10−2 + 7.1σ ) ln VVdc
- The system used was toluene-water with acetone as the mass (Vc f + Vdf )m = (6.81 × 10−3 + 0.7047σ − 15.222σ 2 ) (Tribess and Brunello, 1998)
transfer agent (d→c direction). × (1 − 4.55α + 3.247α 2 ) + 0.1778 ln( VVdc ) +
- The equation takes into account the effect of mass transfer and 0.0437(ln Vd
)2 (0.2115D0.20 h0.18 )[1 + ( VVdc dh Ct )]0.09
Vc
plate spacing.
f m = 0.4908 + 1.11 × 102 σ − 1.80 × 103 σ 2 −
- Column diameter was very small (D= 0.0394 m)
(3.44 × 10−2 + 7.1σ ) × ln( VVdc )(2.464A−1 D0.20 h−0.01 )
- Ct is weight fraction of solute in the feed at inlet.
× [1 + ( VVc h
C
d t
)]0.07
d

Vdf = 2.31( A fσμc )−0.41 ( σgμρ4c )−0.5 ( μ

μc −0.08
3
- Studies have been done for 4 different liquid-liquid systems in ) d
(Asadollahzadeh et al., 2011)
c
the absence of mass transfer
× ( eαg )0.127 ( ρσ2ραc )0.35 (1 +
3 Vd
Vc
)−0.43
d

lation occurs in the column, the pressure drop across the active
section of the column increases considerably and continuously.
Therefore, similar to liquid-gas systems, any fracture in numeri-
cal graph of pressure difference in terms of the dispersed phase
flow rate is known as a starting point of flooding (Ousaka et al.,
2006). This method was used to determine the flooding points
in this study.
3. Experimental investigation
3.1. Description of equipment
was introduced to the liquid level and amplitude and frequency
were adjusted using setting movement amplitude of the liquid and
a digital controller, respectively. The diameter and length of active
parts of the column are 6 cm and 296 cm, respectively. The active
part of the column is a pipe housing an internal plate cartridge
consisting of 24 pairs of sieve plate in the horizontal section as
well as 29 individual sieve plates in the vertical section. An in-
verted U-tube manometer partially filled with toluene was used for
measuring the pressure drop along the column in all experiments.
The column detailed geometrical characteristics and materials are
presented in Table 2.

A schematic diagram of experimental apparatus is shown in 2.2. Liquid-liquid system

Fig. 1. The setup has been consisted of vertical and horizontal parts
as active sections of the column, upper settler, bottom settler, four Liquid-liquid systems used in this work were toluene/water,
storage tanks, two dosing pumps, two rotameters, one U-shaped n butanol/water and n-butyl acetate/water in order to cover a
manometer and air pulsating system called pulsator. The pulsation wide range of interfacial tension. These systems have been recom-
270 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of the horizontal-vertical pulsed plate column.

mended by the European Federation of Chemical Engineering as of-
ficial test systems for extraction investigations (Míšek et al., 1985).
The Physical properties of these systems are listed in Table 3. All
experiments were carried out at the 20 ± 1 °C.
2.3. Experimental procedure
Before carrying out the experiments, both phases were mutu-
ally saturated. The amplitude and frequency of pulsation were next
adjusted to the desired values and then, the column was filled with
the continuous phase from a storage tank, followed by the intro-
duction of the dispersed phase at the initial part of the horizontal
section of the column. The interface position in upper settler was
then maintained at desired level, and liquid-liquid system was al-
lowed to reach steady state under a particular pulsation intensity.
At this time, the static two-phase pressure drop through the col-
umn length was measured by using a manometer as can be seen
in Fig. 1. The next experiments were conducted at the same con-
tinuous phase flow rate and pulsation intensity, with increasing
dispersed phase flow rate. During the experiments, the manome-
ter showed an increasing pressure drop as the flow rate of the
dispersed phase increased. This procedure is repeated 281 times
in different pulsation intensities and the continuous and dispersed
phase flow rates for different liquid systems in order to study the
effect of operating and physical parameters on the pressure drop
through the column. Table 4 exhibits the experimental range of the
operating parameters which has been studied.
The average absolute value of the relative error (AARE) is used
to compare the predicted results with the experimental data. This
 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276 271

Table 2
Geometrical characteristics and material used for the column and plates.

Material used for settlers, column and pulsator Glass

Material used for plates Stainless steel

Main parts of the column Horizontal section Vertical section

Active parts length of the column (cm) 146 146

Active parts internal diameter of the column (cm) 6 6
Upper settler internal diameter (cm) – 9
lower settler internal diameter (cm) 9 –
Upper settler length (cm) – 90
Lower settler length (cm) 60 –
Plate thickness (mm) 1 1
Hole diameter (mm) 2 2
Hole pitch (mm) 4 4
Spacing between two plates (cm) 1∗ , 5∗∗ 5
Free area fraction (–) 0.11 0.22
∗
spacing between two individual plates in a pair
∗∗
spacing between two pairs in a cell

Table 3 and dispersed phase outlets. In extraction columns, three differ-

Physical properties of system studies at 20 ± 1 °C.
ent flooding limits can be defined to characterize the permissible
Physical property Toluene–water n Butyl acetate–water Butanol-water working-area (Schilp and Blass, 1984):
ρ c (kg/m3 ) 998 997.6 985.6 1. Flooding at the light phase outlet, with discharging the heavy
ρ d (kg/m3 ) 864 880 846
phase.
μc (mPa s) 0.963 1.027 1.429
μd (mPa s) 0.586 0.734 3.36 2. Flooding at the heavy phase outlet, with discharging the light
σ (mN/m) 35.4 13.5 1.9 phase.
3. Flooding in both light and heavy phase outlets due to sig-
nificantly high total throughput of dispersed and continuous
Table 4
Operating parameters used. phases.

Biphasic system Af(cm/s) Qc (l/h) Qd (l/h) In this study, the two-phase pressure drop characteristics and
the visual flooding points (the second flooding limit due to its im-
Toluene-water 0.8,0.95,1.1,1.3 4.5–18 2.5–25
Butyl acetate –water 0.8,0.95,1.1 4.5–18 2.5–20 portance from the industry point of view), corresponding to the
n-butanol-water 0.8,0.95,1.1 4.5–18 2.5–20 loading curve have been evaluated. Furthermore, two correlations
for prediction of pressure drop under and at the flooding points,
and one correlation for determination of the flooding velocity have
is defined as follows: been proposed, which can be used for characterizing the operating
region of the column.
1  [Cal cul ated val ue − Experimental value]
NDP
AARE% = (7) 3.1. Pressure drop and flooding in counter-current two-phase flow
NDP Experimental value
i=1

in which NDP is number of points.
3. Result and discussion
For fully developed flow, the static pressure drop (P) for
counter-current liquid–liquid flow through the active part of the
column can be calculated by Eq. (8):
P = (ρc − ρd )gl
where l is height shown by the manometer, ρ c is the density of
the heavy phase and ρ d is the density of the light phase. The total
pressure drop (Pt ) through the active part of the column can be
determined by Eq. (9):
Pt = PB − PA = ρc gH + (ρc − ρd )gl
where L represents the vertical distance between pressures taps,
H = 1.8 m represents the vertical distance between the points A and
B, and (Pt is the total pressure drop that experimentally mea-
sured.
One of the main objectives of this work is to clarify a suitable
method for the prediction of flooding conditions in a horizontal-
vertical pulsed sieve-plate column. The flooding capacity or limit-
ing flow can be determined by observation of the possible range
of interface location until cloudiness appears in the continuous
In this study, the effect of the flow rates of the dispersed and
continuous phases on the static pressure drop for constant pulsa-
tion intensity of 1.1 cm/s is given in Fig. 2(a, b and c) for toluene–
water, n butyl acetate–water and n butanol-water. As can be seen
from the graph, the pressure drop increases, with an increase in
the flow rates of the dispersed and the continuous phases for three
liquid systems. It is observed that under flooding points, the pres-
sure drop gradually increases with an increase in the flow rate of
(8) the dispersed phase. However, after reaching the flooding points,
further increase of the liquid throughput leads to a continuous in-
crease of the pressure drop. Increasing the flow rates of the dis-
persed and the continuous phases results in a rise of the interfa-
cial area between the coalesced phases due to the interfacial dissi-
pation as well as an increase in the dispersed phase holdup. Con-
(9) sequently, this phenomenon delays the flooding tendency of the
column as well as increasing throughput.
Fig. 3 (a, b and c) presents typical variation of the static pres-
sure drop with the dispersed phase flow rates as well as pulsation
intensity for the three systems of toluene–water, n butyl acetate–
water and n butanol-water. It can be seen that the static pressure
drop increases with increasing the pulsation intensity along with
the enhancement of the interfacial area between two phases. It is
clear that a rise in pulsation intensity results in the higher values
of shear stress and thus more drop breakage. Moreover, the spe-
cific interfacial area is a function of the mean diameter as well
272 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276
Fig. 2. Variation of static pressure drop with continuous and dispersed flow rate for
constant pulsation intensity of 1.1 cm/s: (a) toluene–water (b) n-butyl acetate–water
(c) n-butanol-water.
as the hold-up of the dispersed phase in the column. Therefore,
as the pulsation intensity increases, the mean drop diameter de-
clines along with a consequence increase in the value of the hold-
up, which leads to an increase in the interfacial area between the
continuous and the dispersed phases. It can be concluded that in-
creasing the pulsation intensity brings forward the flooding ten-
dency of the column as well as decreasing the maximum through-
put. As can be observed in Fig. 3, increasing the pulsation intensity
leads to an increase of the approach to flooding, and in constant
Fig. 3. Variation of static pressure drop with pulsation intensity for the constant
continuous phase flow rate of 6.75 lit/hr: (a) toluene–water (b) n-butyl acetate–
water (c) n-butanol-water.
continuous phase flow rate, the flooding occurs at lower values of
the dispersed phase flow rate, which indicates the reduction of the
throughput of the column in higher pulse velocities.
The effect of pulsation intensity on the throughput of the col-
umn for different liquid-liquid systems with different interfacial
tension is illustrated in Fig. 4 for the constant continuous flow rate
of 9 lit/hr. According to Fig. 4, with increasing the pulsation in-
tensity, throughput of column decreases. Moreover, the flooding is
reached with lower dispersed phase flow rate in the same con-
 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276 273

Fig. 5. Comparison of experimental pressure drop under flooding with those calcu-
lated from Eq. (11).

other types of extraction columns and new predictive correlations

Fig. 4. Variation of the flooding points of the column with pulsation intensity at are needed to evaluate the performance of such columns. In the
different flow ratio (R) for toluene-water (T-W), butyl acetate-water (BA-W) and n following, two predictive correlations, considering the effect of the
butanol-water (B-W).
operating parameters and physical properties, are proposed one for
the case under flooding points and another one for the case at the
tinuous phase flow rate. In addition, it can be obtained that in flooding points in order to determine the static pressure drop in
the liquid systems with lower interfacial tension, the maximum the experimental setup.
throughput of the column has lower values. In fact, with a decline a) Pressure drop below the flooding points:
in interfacial tension, pulsation produces smaller drops and conse- As shown in Figs. 2-4, the pressure drop under flooding is a
quently the maximum holdup of the dispersed phase increases to function of Qc , Qd , and Af as well as physical properties of the sys-
the higher values and the maximum capacity of the column will tems which can be presented by Eq. (10):
increase.
P = f (Qc , Qd , ρc , ρd , μc , μd , A f, σ ) (10)
Fig. 4 also exhibits that the maximum throughput of the col-
umn increases with the enhancement of the dispersed to continu- For prediction of the pressure drop, a theoretical-experimental
ous phase flow ratio (R). It is clear that the rising velocity of the correlation is proposed in terms of the operating parameters and
dispersed phase drops relies upon the drop diameter and on the the physical properties of the liquid systems by the dimensional
other hand, the interfacial tension is the physical property which analysis method as follows:
has the strong influence on the drop diameter. Therefore, increas-
 −0.006  −0.004  −9.788
ing the flow ratio leads to the formation of larger drops and since P −4 A f Vd ρ
the buoyancy forces on larger drops have greater values compared = 2.98 × 10
(A f )2 ρc Vd Vc ρc
to smaller drops, the residence time of the dispersed phase drops
 μ 3.994  σ 1.985
will decrease and consequently the capacity of the column in- d
× (11)
creases. Fig. 4 also indicates that the flooding points change with μc A f μc
the variation of interfacial tension. In fact, chemical system with
high interfacial tension results in larger drops, lower residence The comparison of the experimental data for the three chem-
time, the higher relative velocity between the continuous and dis- ical systems with those calculated by Eq. (11) is shown in Fig. 5.
persed phases, following by a reduction in holdup of the dispersed The experimental values of P which were obtained from the ex-
phase which leads to more stable operating condition. Therefore, periments showed very good agreement with those calculated by
higher total allowable throughput can be achieved in systems with Eq. (11) and it was clear that the presented correlation is able to
higher interfacial tension. give satisfactory prediction of the static pressure drop under flood-
ing in the horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate column. The AARE
was 2.15%.
3.2. Predictive correlation for pressure drop
b) Pressure drop at the flooding points:
For prediction of the pressure drop at flooding points, another
The literature provides a few developed equations on the pres-
correlation is derived in terms of the operating parameters and
sure drop in the pulsed sieve-plate columns and most of them do
physical properties of the liquid systems by the dimensional anal-
not consider all operating parameters and physical properties of
ysis method as follows:
chemical system into account. Therefore, there is still a lot to do
in this field. In particular, the horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate  −0.002  −0.002  ρ −9.819
P f Af Vd
column is a novel type of the extractors which is investigated for = 2.64 × 10−4
the first time in this work. In fact, in horizontal section of the (A f )2 ρc Vd Vc ρc
horizontal-vertical column, the influence of the gravitational ac-  μ 4.007  σ 1.992
d
celeration and consequently buoyancy forces on drops movement × (12)
μc A f μc
is limited, while in vertical section, similar with other standard
vertical pulsed columns, these forces are considerable. Therefore, A comparison of the experimental results for the three chemical
a horizontal-vertical pulsed column will operate differently from systems with the values predicted by Eq. (12) is shown in Fig. 6. It
274 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276
Fig. 6. Comparison of experimental pressure drop at flooding with those calculated
from Eq. (12).
reveals the accuracy of the derived equation in order to evaluate
the pressure drop at flooding points in the column. The AARE was
3.56%.
In addition to the application of two-phase pressure drop for
design and scale-up of an extraction column, it can been used for
evaluation of operating parameters based on the flooding points.
Accordingly, operating parameters including pulsation intensity
and flow rate of phases can be set on the initial values. Then, pres-
sure drop can be calculated using Eqs. (11) and (12) in the ba-
sis of these parameters along with physical properties of the liq-
uid system. Regarding the comparison between the calculated val-
ues of two-phase pressure drop obtained from Eqs. (11) and (12),
if the pressure drop from Eq. (11) is less than 80% of that calcu-
lated by Eq. (12), the initial operating conditions can be applied for
the steady-state column operation. On the other hand, if the pres-
sure drop from Eq. (11) is greater than 80% of that obtained from
Eq. (12), the specified parameters are not appropriate for operating
under steady-state condition and flooding probably happens in the
column. Therefore, at this condition the initial operating parame-
ters should be modified and this procedure have to be repeated
until the pressure drop obtained from Eq. (11) becomes less than
80% of that of Eq. (12), thereby operating under steady-state con-
dition.
Fig. 7. Testing the predictive ability of different correlations for flooding in horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate columns: (a) Smoot et al., (1959) correlation and (b)
McAllister et al., (1967) correlation.
3.3. Predictive correlation for flooding velocity
Operating parameters including pulsation intensity and flow
rates of continuous and dispersed phases as well as geometrical
and physical properties affect the flooding in the pulsed column.
Increase in the pulsation intensity has been found to enhance the
approach to flooding. Moreover, an increase in the plate parame-
ters, e.g., percentage free area, perforation diameter, or plate spac-
ing increase the maximum throughput and consequently delay the
flooding in the column. However, with increasing these parame-
ters, the mass transfer performance of the column decreases due
to the reduction of shear forces.
Regarding the prediction of flooding, two approaches are avail-
able in the literature: one is prediction of the entire flooding curve
(Logsdail and Thornton, 1957; McAllister et al., 1967; Smoot et
al., 1959) and another one is prediction of only the maximum in
the flooding curve (Berger and Walter, 1985; Tribess and Brunello,
1998). In this study, the former approach is used for the experi-
mental data.
Fig. 7(a and b) exhibits the predictive ability of the correla-
tions from the work of Smoot et al. (1959) and McAllister et al.
(1967) respectively. It is achieved that none of the correlations are
in good agreement with experimental data. Since the available cor-
relations are not general enough to determine the entire flooding
curve for a liquid–liquid system in different columns, a compre-
hensive experimental investigation is still required. However, it is
recommended to investigate on fluid dynamic and mass transfer
for three liquid-liquid systems including n butanol–succinic acid–
water, n butyl acetate–acetone–water and toluene–acetone–water
(Míšek et al., 1985) in order to cover a wide range of interfacial
tension which leads to lower required cost (Lorenz et al., 1990).
Since the determination of flooding is primarily for extraction
columns, based on 54 flooding velocity data points, a theoretical-
experimental correlation is proposed for prediction of flooding
curve in terms of the operating parameters and physical proper-
ties of the liquid systems by the dimensional analysis method as
follows:
 −0.109  −0.095
(Vd + Vc ) f μc Af Af
= 2.086 × 10−8
σ Vc Vd
 −6.586  2.582 
ρ μd σ 0.404
× (13)
ρc μc A f μc
A comparison of the experimental results for the three chemi-
cal systems with the values predicted by Eq. (13) is illustrated in
Fig. 8. This figure shows good agreement between the calculated
 P. Amani et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 65 (2017) 266–276
Fig. 8. Comparison of experimental flooding velocity of dispersed phase with those
calculated from Eq. (13).
values and the experimental data of the flooding velocity of dis-
persed phase. The average absolute of the relative error was 7.22%.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, an experimental investigation on the pressure
drop and the flooding behavior in a novel class of the extrac-
tion columns entitled "the horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate
column" is carried out. The results show that the pressure drop
increases, with an increase in the flow rates of the dispersed
and continuous phases for three liquid systems used. The inter-
facial tension is found to be the most effective physical property
which affects the hydrodynamic behavior of the column. It is also
achieved that the higher interfacial area due to higher pulsation
intensity, leads to an increase in the static pressure drop of the
column, which results in lower value of holdup and higher total
allowable throughput. However, with further increasing the pulsa-
tion intensity, throughput of column decreases.
Since there is no correlation for prediction of pressure drop
under and at flooding in horizontal-vertical pulsed sieve-plate
columns, two theoretical-experimental correlations for determina-
tion of these measurements by using dimensional analysis method
are proposed. These correlations are in terms of operating pa-
rameters and the physical properties of the liquid systems, which
showed satisfactory accuracy with the AARE values of 2.15% and
3.56% respectively. Another correlation for prediction of flooding
velocity is presented, which is in good agreement with the experi-
mental data, with AARE of 7.22%.
A particular approach for evaluation of flooding points is also
developed, which gives the way to set operating parameters on
certain values in order to prevent flooding, based on the determi-
nation of pressure drop through the column.
Symbols
a Specific interfacial area, m 2 /m 3
A Amplitude of pulsation, m
f Frequency of pulsation, Hz
Af Pulsation intensity, m/s
CD Discharge coefficient
D Column diameter, m
g Gravitational acceleration, = 9.81 m2 /s
h Plate spacing, m
L Column length, m
Q Volumetric flow rate, m3 /s
R Dispersed to continuous phase flow ratio
t Time, s
275
V Velocity, m/s
Vc Superficial velocity of continuous phase, m/s
Vd Superficial velocity of dispersed phase, m/s
Vs Slip velocity, m/s
V0 Characteristic velocity, m/s
ʋ Kinematic viscosity, m2 /s
y Change of position along the column length, m
Greek Symbols
P Pressure drop, pa
P f Frictional pressure drop, pa
α Fractional free area
ɛ Power dissipated per unit mass of fluid, W/kg
ϕ Hold-up
μ Viscosity, N s/m2
ρ Density, kg/m3
ρ̄ Density of mixture of phases, kg/m3
σ Interfacial tension between two phases, N/m
Subscripts
c Continuous phase
d Dispersed phase
f Flooding
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