Author:

Keywords:

Bubbles in Liquid Metal, Hele-Shaw Flow, Gas-Liquid Interaction

Abstract:

Bubble column reactors are employed in various pyrometallurgical smelting and refining processes. A fundamental understanding of their operation requires detailed information on the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic phenomena governing the behavior of individual gas bubbles in the melt. In this work, the opportunities of a Hele-Shaw cell based experimental setup for investigating reactive gas bubbles in liquid metals are evaluated as an alternative to tomography techniques, which are often difficult to apply at high temperatures. Our setup consists of two transparent closely spaced parallel plates. The gap between the plates is filled with liquid metal and gas bubbles with a significantly larger equivalent diameter than the gap width are injected in the melt. The relatively high surface tension of the liquid metal prevents the formation of a wetting layer between the bubbles and the wall, allowing the accurate tracking of the gas-liquid interface. In this way, bubble properties and 2D flow patterns in the system can be monitored under controlled circumstances and allows the in-situ study of the interactions between thermodynamic and hydrodynamic phenomena.