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The control of liquid backmixing is an important issue in reactor design for processes with high conversions. In this work, interstage internals were used in a novel multistage internal-loop airlift slurry reactor to decrease backmixing in the liquid phase. Two types of interstage internals, namely, Internal I(perforated plate) and Internal II(perforated plate with tubes) were investigated. The axial distributions of the solid particles inside each stage and between different stages were measured with a sampling method. Interstage liquid backmixing was measured with two electrical conductivity probes using the tracing method. The effects of the structure of the interstage internal, superficial gas and liquid velocities, and particle size on interstage liquid backmixing and the distribution of solid particles were investigated. The superficial liquid velocity had more effect on interstage liquid backmixing than the superficial gas velocity. Backmixing in the liquid phase became negligible when the superficial liquid velocity exceeded a small critical value. Internal II, which was specially designed for this work, was better than the perforated plate for the uniform distribution of solid particles in the different stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]