Hamidreza Saghafi - Research Institute of Petroleum Industry,IOR/EOR Research Institute, Tehran, Iran
Seyyed Mohammad Javad Kazemi - Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, IOR/EOR Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

Drop size distribution is a basic parameter for design and scale up of extraction columns. This is a key parameter used for calculation of interfacial area for mass transfer. In this study drop size distribution was measured in a pulsed disc and doughnut column using three different liquid system in the absence of mass transfer operation. The operating conditions that were investigated, were pulse intensity, dispersed and continuous phase flow rates. A combination of the pulse intensity and interfacial tension had the largest effect on the drop size distribution while none of the flow rates were of significance. Finally, both normal and log-normal function was used to predict the droplet size distribution and correlation to predict the function of these two parameters according to the operating conditions and physical properties of the system were presented. Good agreement between prediction and experiments is found for all operating conditions investigated.

Pulsed Disc and Doughnut column; Drop size distribution; Pulse intensity; Dispersed phase; Continues phase