Bubble Generation at Micro-Orifices with Application to Wastewater Treatment

Many chemical, biochemical and environmental processes are characterized by inefficient mass transfer and mixing. This hold particularly for aeration and ozonisation in waste water treatment. Therefore, technologies for efficient fine gas dispersion and creation of small gas bubbles are of interest. One way to achieve finer gas dispersion is to scale-down the opening at which the gas bubbles are generated. At very small openings, the bubble formation process is highly influenced by high capillary pressure and gas kinetic energy. So far, the leverage of small orifices, especially smaller than 1 mm, to the final gas bubble size is not well understood. In the current investigation, we experimentally studied the dynamics of gas bubble formation from submerged orifices ranging between 0.04 and 0.8 mm in a wide range of gas flow rates. We observed different mechanisms of bubble formation at micro-orifices compared to millimetre orifices. Moreover, we present a bubbling regime map to describe the dynamic behaviour of forming bubbles. Finally, to evaluate the performance of micro-orifice spargers, we compared them with industrial rubber membrane diffusers with respect to the Sauter mean bubble diameter.