Influence of geometrical and operational parameters on the axial dispersion in an aerated channel reactor

Residence time distribution experiments have been performed on an activated sludge 3000 m3 channel reactor aerated by gas diffusion (for different liquid flowrates under constant aeration rate and constant water depth) and on a bench-scale channel reactor aerated from the bottom (for different liquid and gas flowrates and water depths) in order to characterize their hydrodynamics. Both units can be modeled as plug flow reactors with axial dispersion. A general correlation has been obtained to predict the axial dispersion coefficient as a function of the gas and liquid velocities and the geometrical parameters of the full-scale and bench-scale reactors. Finally, to facilitate the simulation of biological reactions in transient state, an equivalent model based on tanks-in-series with variable back-mixing flowrate is proposed.