Sedimentation of droplet dispersions in counter—current spray columns

Abstract

Abstract A simple model is presented for the prediction of hold‐up and slip velocity in spray columns in which the continuous phase moves counter‐current to the dispersed phase. Analysis of 591 data points for 16 systems from 8 different sources show that the slip velocity is given in terms of the average drop diameter of the drop swarm and the physical properties of the system by: for 7 < Re < 2450 and 0.01 < ϵ d < 0.75. This equation predicts the slip velocity to within 10% for 70% of the data points and to within 20% for 92% of the data points.