An investigation of the droplet size distributions in a cyclone reactor for liquid‐liquid heterogeneous reactions using FBRM and PVM

Abstract A multi‐element process coupled cyclone reactor for the liquid‐liquid heterogeneous reaction was proposed. This paper presents the investigation of dispersed phase droplet size distributions near the wall surface using FBRM and PVM. To translate a chord length distribution (CLD) measured by the FBRM instrument into its droplet size distribution (DSD), a CLD‐DSD transformation model was proposed. Moreover, the effects of operational parameters on the droplet size distributions were studied. The results show that the total inlet flow plays a decisive role on the dispersed phase droplet size distributions, while the influence of feed ratio is mainly reflected in inhibiting the probability of droplet coalescence. In comparison, the influence of overflow ratio on the droplet size distributions can be neglected.