Prediction of species concentration distribution using a rigorous turbulent mass diffusivity model for bubble column reactor simulation part II: Analogy between turbulent mass and momentum transfer in toluene emissions biodegradation process.

Toluene is a kind of volatile organic compounds usually present in industrial emissions. In this work, the rigorous model for species concentration distribution prediction proposed in part I was applied in simulating the biological degradation process of toluene in a bubble column (BC) reactor. We show in the present paper that the species concentration, turbulent mass diffusivity and velocity distributions in the bubble column bioreactor can be obtained simultaneously by applying the proposed model. On the basis of the simulations, the analogy between the turbulent mass diffusivity and turbulent viscosity for the bubble column reactor was investigated. The results showed that this analogy may depend on the rate of chemical or bio-chemical reaction in the bubble columns and remain for the case with a lower reaction rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]