Enhancement of gas-liquid mass transfer by a dispersed second liquid phae

From experiments in a stirred cell contactor with flat gas-liquid interface, it is shown that the rate of mass transfer of oxygen into an aqueous solution can be enhanced by the presence of small amounts (0.5–1 vol%) of a dispersed organic phase (e.g. hexadecane, decane, decanol or cyclohexane), provided that the droplet diameter is in the order of or smaller than the film thickness (D/kL) and the solubility of oxygen in the organic phase is larger than in water. A simple model is proposed that predicts the experimentally observed enhancement factors with reasonable accuracy.