Photon Transport and Hydrodynamics in Gas‐Liquid Flow Part 2: Characterization of Bubbly Flow in an Advanced‐Flow Reactor

Abstract The Corning® G1 Advanced‐Flow™ Reactor (G1 AFR) is a commercially available meso‐scale reactor which promotes a bubbly flow regime and was previously used to scale‐up gas‐liquid photoreactions. In this paper, we study how the photon transport and hydrodynamics affects the performance of G1 AFR in gas‐liquid flow. This was realized by analyzing the flow pattern, liquid residence time, photon flux per liquid volume and optical pathlength using image analysis, residence time distribution (RTD) experiments and chemical actinometry. While the gas content did not significantly influence the RTD responses and photon flux per liquid volume, it affected the liquid residence time and optical pathlength. An empirical correlation was proposed to predict the optical pathlength in gas‐liquid flow. The constant photon flux per liquid volume and hydrodynamics found for bubbly flow in G1 AFR translate into high flexibility to choose the flow conditions without affecting the performance of this photoreactor.