(610d) Bubbly Flow in Degassing Cyclones and Potential Applications

A degassing cyclone is a separator that can be widely used for the removal of bubbles and dissolved gas from liquids. Gas bubbles move toward the swirling center region in a degassing cyclone due to centrifugal force. The dissolved gas is desorbed due to a decrease in the saturated solubility resulting from the pressure gradient in the degassing cyclone. Additional carrier gas bubbles with lower partial pressure lead to mass transfer at the turbulent bubble interface. The final sate of the dissolved gas and carrier gas bubble in degassing cyclones is an important issue that can be used to develop a theoretical foundation for green separation engineering.

The feasible development of this technology and potential applications are discussed in this work. Gas stripping, as a common method of gas-liquid mass transfer separation in the chemical industry, is widely used in petroleum refining, wastewater treatment, metal smelting, and other production processes. Increasing amounts of sulfur-containing crude oil are used in petroleum refining. The sulfur elements in crude oil are eventually discharged in the form of hydrogen sulfide. Higher requirements have been put forward for hydrogen sulfide stripping technology due to the increased and stricter environmental protection rules. In order to control the content of hydrogen sulfide in produced oil, a hydrogen sulfide stripper usually needs to consume more hot carrier gas. However, the color and stability of the bottom oil may deteriorate due to thermal decomposition. This indicates that the single heating method cannot solve the problem of hydrogen sulfide stripping. Therefore, high-efficiency and low-cost stripping separation of dissolved hydrogen sulfide from oil products has become an important separation method in chemical engineering. The degassing hydrocyclone has proved to be an optimized and feasible solution for this.