Investigating the Impact of Feed-Air Saturation in Air-Water Spray Entrainment

Entrainment characterization is critical for a variety of separation processes in the chemical process industry, including distillation and absorption. Liquid entrainment is a key aspect of these applications that is not well understood. In order to support further research into this field, it is important to determine the correct methods by which to analyze entrainment in laboratory systems. This work investigates the impact of saturating the feed air to an air-water entrainment system, particularly on the droplet size and velocity distributions as measured by Phase Doppler Interferometry. Entrainment measurements were made at the same experimental conditions with and without pre-saturating the feed, and the results were compared to determine the impact on those measurements. These method evaluations are essential as they guide the larger research effort in correlating entrainment with efficiency and capacity.