Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622

www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Effect of antifoam agents on bubble characteristics in bubble columns based

on acoustic sound measurements
Waheed A. Al-Masry ∗ , Emad M. Ali, Yehya M. Aqeel
Department of Chemical Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Received 17 August 2005; received in revised form 1 December 2005; accepted 9 January 2006
Available online 28 February 2006

Abstract
In this paper, the effect of antifoam agents on bubble characteristics in bubble columns is studied. Specifically, the bubble characteristics of
air in tap water are compared to those of air in 5% and 10% antifoam solutions. Bubble characteristics such as gas holdup, bubble diameter,
bubble-size distribution, and damping ratio were investigated at various superficial gas velocities. These properties were deduced from the
acoustic sound measurement. The study revealed that the addition of antifoam chemicals reduces the overall gas holdup and increases the average
bubble diameter. The bubble-size distribution in tap water is found to be homogeneous while in antifoam solutions to be heterogeneous. It is
also found that at low gas velocities the damping ratio for antifoam solutions is higher than that for tap water, while at high gas velocities the
damping ratio is not affected. The results affirm that acoustic probes are excellent measuring tools over classical tools at moderate gas velocities.
䉷 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Acoustic; Bubble column; Bubble size; Damping ratio; Gas holdup

1. Introduction liquid surface. For example, in biotechnology, surfactants are

Bubble column reactors are widely used in chemical and
biochemical processes such as oxidation, chlorination, poly-
merization, hydrogenation, synthetic fuels by gas conversion
processes, fermentation and wastewater treatment. Bubble
columns are preferred to be two-phase contactors for their
ease of operation, maintenance and absence of moving parts,
yet they have complex hydrodynamic characteristics. Bubble
columns can be operated in different flow regimes depending
on the gas flow rate, column dimensions, the physicochem-
ical properties of the two-phase mixture, and the operating
conditions.
Foam is a persistence phenomenon in different technologies
involving multiphase operations; such as pulp and paper, food
processing, textile dyeing, fermentation, wastewater treatment,
detergents, paints, froth flotation of ores, and oil industry. There
are two factors necessary for foam to form: a process that dis-
perses a gas into a liquid to form bubbles, and stabilization of
bubbles through adsorption of a surface-active material at the
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +966 504184158; fax: +966 12088945.
E-mail address: walmasry@ksu.edu.sa (W.A. Al-Masry).
0009-2509/$ - see front matter 䉷 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2006.01.009
almost always present, as both raw materials such as peptides,
and substances such as proteins released by the growing mi-
croorganisms. Foam formed during fermentation is stabilized
by components present in the growth medium and by fermen-
tation products, such as extracellular proteins or other biologi-
cal molecules. The amount and nature of the foam is likely to
change during the course of the fermentation. Foam in biore-
actors can carry away fermentation broth, leading to product
losses and blocked filters downstream. Foam production can
lead to microbial containment issues and loss of process steril-
ity. Foaming can also lead to fouling of probes which can re-
sult in poor process control. Foam can be controlled by adding
chemicals or broken by mechanical devices, with the later be-
ing the most efficient.
Several studies dealing with the effect of antifoam chemicals
on the hydrodynamics and mass transfer properties in bubble
columns have been reported in the literature. Antifoam addi-
tion leads to increase in bubble sizes and therefore, reduction
in the interfacial area. Consequently the gas holdup and volu-
metric mass transfer coefficient are reduced. The decrease in
gas holdup was related to higher slip velocity of larger bubbles
formed by coalescence and the decrease in volumetric mass
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622
transfer coefficient is mainly due to the decrease in interfacial
area caused by formation of large bubbles (Koide et al., 1985;
Kawase and Moo-Young, 1987; Al-Masry, 1999; Pelton, 2002;
Denkov, 2004).
The aim of this work is to study the effect of the addi-
tion of antifoam chemicals on bubble characteristics in bub-
ble columns inferred from acoustic probes. The acoustic sound
measurements for bubbles characterization in gas–liquid sys-
tems are attractive technology over other methods, particularly
for systems with foaming characteristics which fouls classical
sensors.
2. Theory of acoustic waves
Sound waves are acoustic waves audible to the human ear and
these occur at frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz. Acoustic
sounds are characterized by their frequency, speed at which
they travel and its amplitude. The amplitude changes with time
and depends on the distance from the sound source at which it
is measured. As an acoustic wave travels through a medium its
amplitude will decrease due to attenuation. Attenuation of the
wave is caused by adsorption (conversion of acoustic energy to
other forms of energy) and scattering.
The production of an acoustic signal by bubbles was first
proposed by Minnaert (1933). Bubbles produce an acoustic
sound due to gas compression in the bubble. Under adiabatic
conditions, the natural frequency of a single, millimeter size,
linearly oscillating bubble is given (Minnaert, 1933) by

r = kR 0 .
3P0

0 = , (1)
R02
where
0 is the radian frequency,  is the ratio of specific
heats, P0 is the absolute liquid pressure,  is the liquid den-
sity and R0 is the equivalent spherical radius of the bubble.
The above equation indicates that a unique relationship exists
between the frequency of volume pulsations and the radius of
the bubble at a particular static pressure. This principle is uti-
lized to determine the bubble size distribution in a gas-sparged
bubble column.
As the newly formed bubble detaches from the sprager, it
emits a pulse of sound. Such pulse lasts less than 20 ms. The
bubble then oscillates producing an acoustic pressure pulse,
eventually returning to its equilibrium bubble size. For small
amplitude oscillations the resulting sound pressure pulse is an
exponentially damped sine wave:
p = p0 sin(2f t)e−t ,
where p is pressure at the hydrophone at time t; p0 is the
initial pressure magnitude of the bubble oscillation; and  is
the exponential decay constant.
Hydrodynamic forces usually distort the bubbles while they
are rising up in the column. These shape distortion alter the
oscillation frequency. The shape distortion themselves induce
acoustic oscillation by nonlinear resonance. It is common that
the bubbling rate increase with the gas flowrate. The bubbling
rate could be considered high once bubbles begin to collide.
3611
As the bubble rate increases, bubbles also become larger
and more distorted and begin to affect each other. At these
conditions, the correlation given in Eq. (1) becomes invalid
(Mannasseh et al., 2001). Moreover, the aforementioned fac-
tors affect the bubble pulsation and as a result modulated or
short length oscillation may occur.
The exponential decay constant  is a characteristic of the
bubble oscillation and is studied by several authors. For exam-
ple, Medwin (1977) has shown that the dimensionless version
of , i.e.,  = /f , is a function of the physical properties
of the gas bubble, host liquid and interface between them. It
proposed that the damping constant can be calculated from
 =  t + v + r , (3)
where t is the thermal damping coefficient and is given by
t = 3( − 1)
X(sinh X + sin X) − 2(cosh X − sin X)
× ,
X 2 (cosh X− cos X) + 3( − 1)X(sinh X − sin X)
(4)
X = R0 (2
0 g Cp g /Kg )1/2 (5)
and v is the viscous damping coefficient and is given by
v = 4/(
0 R02 ) (6)
and r is the radiation damping coefficient and is given by
(7)
Assuming bubbles of a uniform size are oscillating simultane-
ously, the actual number of bubble presented in a bubble col-
umn can be estimated directly from the following ratio (Pandit
et al., 1992):
 2
Pr
na = , (8)
P
where Pr is the resultant measured pressure and P is the in-
stantaneous sound pressure which can be found from solving
a given bubble volume-pulsation equation under certain condi-
tions. Pandit et al. (1992) have shown that the number of bub-
bles of certain size can be related to their sound pressure and
frequency as follows:
na = CP 2r f02 . (9)
Boyd and Varley (1998) used Eq. (8) to estimate the number
(2) of bubbles but they computed the sound pressure from the fol-
lowing equation:

1 T
P2 = [p0 sin(2f t)e−f t ]2 dt. (10)
T 0
Application of Boyd and Varley method requires the prior
knowledge of the damping constant and more important P0 ,
which is the initial peak of the bubble oscillation. Nevertheless,
both aforementioned methods did not provide any procedure
to validate the estimated bubble number (density).
3612 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622
3. Experimental methods
Schematic diagram of the experimental setup is shown in
Fig. 1. The bubble column was made from transparent acrylic
resin with 0.15 m diameter and 0.66 m clear liquid height. The
gas distributor was a ring sparger with six legs in a star like
cross, with 85 holes and 1 mm diameter equally distributed.
Clean air from cylinder was supplied to tap water medium at
controllable flow rates using thermal mass flowmeter and con-
troller (FMA2613, Omega, USA). All experiments were carried
out at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. A miniature
hydrophone (Type8103, Bruel & Kjær, Denmark) was used to
record the pressure fluctuation. The hydrophone was located
in the center of the column at a depth of 40 cm from the bot-
tom. The location is selected such that the hydrophone resides
in the heart of the bubble region and away from the sparger
to avoid the latter effect. The hydrophone signals were pre-
amplified by charge amplifier (Type2635, Bruel & Kjær, Den-
mark) set to the given calibration. Acoustic pressures were digi-
tized as voltage signals using data acquisition system (DT9806,
Data Translation, USA). The signal generated by a sensor has
to be amplified to provide a higher more usable voltage. The
pre-amplification stage can also include filters that remove un-
wanted frequencies (noise) in the signal. Gas holdup is deter-
mined by measuring the difference in pressure between two
levels within the column. In each experimental run, the gas
flow was set, the voidage and acoustic signal were recorded
after certain time (several minutes) to reach steady state, and
then the gas flowrate was increased. High speed CCD cam-
era (KP-F120CL, Hitachi, Japan) was used to take images of
the bubble generated in the column. The images were digitized
by camera link board (PIXCI CL1, Epix, USA) and analyzed
by interactive image processing software (XCAP, Epix, USA).
3
2
1
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup: 1—gas input, 2—mass flowmeter and controller, 3—drain, 4—manometer, 5—gas distributor,
6—hydrophone, 7—camera, 8—acoustic signal amplifier, 9—PC for capturing acoustic signals and camera images.
The estimated bubble radii from the photography method were
used only to verify those from the acoustic measurements. The
experiment were conducted on three types of water solutions:
air injected into tap water system, air into a water with 5% and
10% volume silicone-based antifoam solutions (Antifoam B,
Sigma, USA). For all experiments, the hydrophone location is
fixed for fair comparison.
The sound measurements are collected at different gas flow
rates using a specific sampling rate of 20 kHz and a capture
time of 10 s. Since the bubble oscillation may last at the most
20 ms, the 10-s long data signal may contain several bubble
pulsations. In this paper, the collected data signals are differ-
enced to remove offset and slow drifts. Moreover, data differ-
encing will act as high-pass filtering that remove static com-
ponents in the signals. The filtered data is then analyzed us-
ing Fourier Transform and bubble counting methods (Al-Masry
et al., 2005). Fourier Transform is applied to the filtered data
to produce power spectra from which the sound pressure distri-
bution and dominant frequency of the bubble pulsation can be
obtained. With the bubble count method, the bubble pulsations
within a specific captured signal are detected using the statis-
tical zero crossing. In this method, the data signal is screened
and whenever, the signal exceeds a threshold value of 186 Pa,
a data segment of duration 7 ms is captured. The number of
captured segments is counted to produce the bubble pulsation
count and consequently the bubbling rate. For each captured
segment, the autocorrelation of the signal is computed from
which the bubble oscillation frequency is estimated using the
zero crossing approach. The ratio of two consecutive oscillation
peaks for each bubble pulsation is calculated to produce the de-
cay ratio and consequently the damping coefficient. Based on
the two above numerical techniques, we will study the effect
of the antifoam on the bubble characteristics.
8 9
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622 3613

4. Results and analysis

4.1. Void fraction and bubble-size distribution

Gas holdup can be calculated directly from the pressure dif-

ference between two points or from the bed expansion method.
Fig. 2 illustrates how the gas holdup measured from the pres-
sure difference varies with superficial gas velocity averaged
over several runs. In general, the gas holdup varies as a mono-
tone function over the given range of superficial velocity. There
is no doubt that the air–water system has larger gas holdup than
those for surfactant solutions (5% and 10% antifoam). It can
also be seen that there is negligible difference in the holdup
of 5% and 10% antifoam solutions. The higher void fraction
for the tap water system can be attributed to many factors such
as the size of the bubbles, the bubbling rate and the density
of the produced bubbles. The results that follow are a maneu-
ver to understand the observed discrepancy between the gas
holdup in tap water and that in presence of antifoam solutions.
Fig. 3 shows photographs of the three systems investigated
at UG = 0.037 m/s near the hydrophone zone. It can be seen
clearly that the difference between the three systems with the
antifoam solutions are more turbid and less transparent.
Figs. 4–6 show the distribution of pulsating bubble count for
the same three water solutions discussed above at different su-
perficial gas velocities. The bubble distribution is obtained us-
ing the bubble count method (Al-Masry et al., 2005) where a
signal sample is scanned for possible bubble pulsation. When-
ever, a pulsation satisfies predefined criteria, a bubble oscilla-
tion is detected and its frequency and number of recurrence
are recorded leading to the so-called bubble-size distribution. It
should be mentioned that the results shown in Figs. 4–6 do not

0.24

0.20

0.16

Fig. 3. Photographs near the hydrophone zone at UG = 0.037 m/s: (a)

Gas holdup

air–water, (b) air—5% antifoam solution, (c) air—10% antifoam solution.

0.12

provide the exact number of bubbles presented in the column.

0.08
The results provide qualitative information about the relative
density of the different bubble sizes presented locally in the col-
umn. The true bubble counts will be discussed in Section 4.4.
0.04
Based on Figs. 4–6, the first observation is that the detected bub-
ble pulsation ranges from 600 to 3000 Hz (according to Eq. (1),
0.00
this corresponds to bubble size of 0.9 to 5.3 mm). For tap wa-
ter system the frequency range is narrower (1200 < f < 2500
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
corresponding to smaller bubbles) with dominant frequency of
UG (m/s)
2000 Hz. With the addition of antifoam larger bubbles are de-
Fig. 2. Gas holdup versus superficial gas velocity; solid: water, dot: antifoam tected. At low superficial velocities, antifoam solutions have a
5%, dashed: antifoam 10%. mix of small and large bubbles with the smaller bubbles being
3614 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622

25

20

15
No.

10

0
(a) (b)

25

20

15
No.

10

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
(c) Frequency, kHz (d) Frequency, kHz

Fig. 4. Bubble count (size) distribution for tap water: (a) UG = 0.0094 m/s, (b) UG = 0.0378 m/s, (c) UG = 0.0661 m/s and (d) UG = 0.0994 m/s.

40

30
No.

20

10

0
(a) (b)

40

30
No.

20

10

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
(c) Frequency, kHz (d) Frequency, kHz

Fig. 5. Bubble count (size) distribution for water with 5% antifoam: (a) UG = 0.0094 m/s, (b) UG = 0.0378 m/s, (c) UG = 0.0661 m/s and (d) UG = 0.0994 m/s.

dominant. As superficial velocity increases, the large bubbles is found for 5% antifoam solution at UG = 0.0994 m/s where
disappear and the small bubbles prevail. Over all cases, bubbles bubble frequency of 1400 Hz is dominating. However, the ac-
with radius 1.6 mm (f = 2000 Hz) are dominating. Exception curacy of this result cannot be verified. The existence of larger
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622 3615

55

44

33
No.
22

11

0
(a) (b)

55

44

33
No.

22

11

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
(c) Frequency, kHz (d) Frequency, kHz

Fig. 6. Bubble count (size) distribution for water with 10% antifoam: (a) Ug =0.0094 m/s, (b) UG =0.0378 m/s, (c) UG =0.0661 m/s and (d) UG =0.0994 m/s.

Table 1
Average bubble radius from different methods

UG (m/s) Tap water 5% antifoam 10% antifoam

Rave (mm) Rave (mm) Rave (mm)

Sound spectra Bubble count Optical Sound spectra Bubble count Optical Sound spectra Bubble count Optical

0.009 1.622 1.509 1.605 2.083 2.170 2.400 1.986 2.097 2.111
0.019 1.623 1.570 1.610 1.757 1.937 2.011 1.810 1.854 2.011
0.028 1.582 1.563 1.599 1.756 2.000 1.980 1.599 1.860 1.890
0.038 1.667 1.615 1.635 1.849 1.811 1.850 1.642 1.757 1.713
0.047 1.650 1.670 1.641 1.716 1.722 1.810 1.640 1.724 1.725
0.057 1.616 1.561 1.583 1.664 1.822 1.780 1.585 1.705 1.641
0.066 1.535 1.538 1.601 1.618 1.701 1.750 1.715 1.625 1.633
0.076 1.611 1.549 1.599 1.933 1.854 1.810 1.674 1.643 1.671
0.085 1.559 1.526 1.559 2.007 1.989 1.760 1.742 1.679 1.662
0.094 1.523 1.528 1.522 1.953 2.007 1.790 1.674 1.631 1.631

bubbles in the surfactant solutions may explain the smaller gas
voidage. However, the large bubbles are only observed at low
superficial gas velocities. Bubble sizes estimated from photog-
raphy supported this observation, with bubble sizes are in the
same range as those estimated here (see Table 1).
4.2. Damping constant
The advantage of the bubble count method is that it allows
for computing the damping constant of the bubble oscillation.
For each detected bubble pulsation, the oscillating sound wave
can be easily constructed using the Auto correlation function
from which the decay ratio (DR) can be easily estimated from
the ratio of the second peak to the first peak. According to
classical harmonic response, the calculated decay ratio can be
converted to damping constant according to
 = − ln(DR)/. (11)
Note that for each detected bubble pulsation, the damping co-
efficient of the oscillation is calculated according to Eq. (11).
Then, the calculated damping coefficients for a specific oscil-
lation frequency are grouped and averaged.
Fig. 7 depicts the experimental mean  for each detected bub-
ble oscillation for three water solutions at different superficial
gas velocities. The result emphasizes that tap water has nar-
rower range of oscillation frequencies. Moreover, the damping
3616 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622

0.3

Damping factor
0.2

(water)
0.1

0.0

0.3
Damping factor
(antifoam 5%)

0.2

0.1

0.0

0.3
(antifoam 10%)
Damping factor

0.2

0.1

0.0
500 900 1300 1700 2100 2500
Frequency, Hz

Fig. 7. Damping factor: solid: UG = 0.0094 m/s, dot: UG = 0.0378 m/s, dashed: UG = 0.0661 m/s and dot–dash: UG = 0.0994 m/s.

0.3
Damping factor

UG = 0.009 m/s
0.2

0.1

0.0

0.3
Damping factor

UG = 0.047 m/s
0.2

0.1

0.0

0.3
UG = 0.094 m/s
Damping factor

0.2

0.1

0.0
500 900 1300 1700 2100 2500
Frequency, Hz

Fig. 8. Damping factor: solid: water, dot: antifoam 5%, dashed: antifoam 10% and dots: theoretical (Eq. (3)).
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622 3617

0.15 800

600

Decay contant, β
0.12 400
Damping factor, δ

200

0.09 0
0 1000 2000 3000
Frequency, Hz

Fig. 10. Damping coefficient for all detected bubble frequencies: solid line:
theoretical (Eq. (3)), dots: experimental, black dot (water), red dot (5%
antifoam) and blue dot (10% antifoam).
0.06
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
UG (m/s) 30

Fig. 9. Average Damping factor: solid: water, dot: antifoam 5% and dashed:
antifoam 10%.
25
factor increases slightly with superficial velocity for the three
solutions. Alternatively, Fig. 8 compares the damping constant
of the three solutions to each other and to that computed theo-
retically using Eq. (3). Clearly, the results in Fig. 8 indicate that 20
Bubling Rate

the antifoam agents do not affect the damping constant as the

mismatch in  among the three solutions is minor. However, the
superficial gas velocity shows some effect on the magnitude of
. As the superficial velocity increases, the damping constant
for all solutions increases departing away from the theoreti-
cal value. The larger  could be the result of elevated bubble
collision due to higher velocity. It is clear, that the damping
correlations (Eqs. (3)–(6)) do not account for variation in gas
velocity since all physical properties and the wave number are
considered constant.
Interestingly, the results in Fig. 8 question the validity of the
theoretical correlation for . At low superficial velocity, appar-
ent mismatch between the theoretical damping constant and the
experimental results exists. It can be argued that the theoretical
correlation may not apply to water mixed with antifoam traces
noting that the physical properties are that for tap water sys-
tem. The slight increase of the experimentally measured  is
also observed and discussed by other authors (Boyd and Varley,
1998). It was suggested that other factors may affect the damp-
ing mechanism other than what the correlations (Eqs. (3)–(7))
account for. For example, there may be an energy transfer be-
tween the bubble volume-oscillation and its shape-oscillation
causing increased damping. Moreover, turbulence may contin-
uously change the bubble shape leading to increased damping.
Fig. 9 illustrates the variation of the damping constant with
superficial gas velocity. The damping constant at each superfi-
cial gas velocity is the average value over the detected oscilla-
tion frequencies. The damping constant for all water solutions
propagate with gas velocity due to bubble to bubble collision
15
10
5
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
UG (m/s)
Fig. 11. Bubbling rate: solid: water, dot: antifoam 5% and dashed: antifoam
10%.
and bubble to wall collision. Despite the mismatch in  for tap
water and water–antifoam systems at low gas velocity, the mag-
nitude of  for dissimilar solutions converges at high gas veloc-
ity. Consequently, the damping constant cannot provide further
information about the bubble behavior in the presence of an-
tifoam solutions. More interesting results can be observed from
Fig. 10 where the entire damping coefficients (in terms of expo-
nential decay constant,  = f ) calculated for all three types
of water–antifoam solutions at several gas superficial velocities
are plotted collectively as a function of their corresponding os-
cillation frequency. The discrete dots represent the experimen-
tal  while the line is theoretical one. Clearly, at low frequency
3618 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622

the experimental  cluster around small value. This means that 4.3. Bubbling rate and root mean square of sound pressure
large bubbles of the same size have almost the same damping
behavior. On the other hand, the high frequency region shows Fig. 11 demonstrate the alteration of bubbling rate with su-
that smaller bubbles have a wide range of damping coefficient. perficial gas velocity. The bubbling rate is computed using the
bubble count method. Although it does not represent the true
0.28 bubbling rate, it can provide relative comparison. Obviously,
for tap water system, the bubbling rate decreases marginally,
while for 10% antifoam solution, the bubbling rate increases.
0.24 Interestingly, the bubbling rate for 5% antifoam solution de-
clines sharply in contrast to what is observed for 10% antifoam
solution. The information gained from the bubbling rate makes
0.20 it difficult to explain the mismatch between the gas holdup of
the tap water and that of the antifoam solutions.
Fig. 12 on the other hand, compares the root mean square of
Prms

0.16 the measured sound pressure for the three solutions. This figure
shows how the bubble characteristic for tap water differs from
that of antifoam solutions. The increased Prms for tap water
0.12
cannot be attributed to the bubbling rate because the result in
Fig. 9 indicated that tap water has less relative bubbling rate. It
is known that a larger bubble emits higher sound. However, tap
0.08
water posses the same bubble size (if not smaller than) that an-
tifoam solutions have. This is obvious from the previous results
0.04
and later in Fig. 14. By inspecting Fig. 13 which demonstrates
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
the power spectrum of the bubble-sound pressure at different
UG (m/s)
superficial velocities, one can make some observations. For tap
water system, the intensity of sound pressure visibly increases
Fig. 12. Root mean Square of measured sound pressure: solid: water, dot: with increased gas velocity. Furthermore, the pressure spectrum
antifoam 5% and dashed: antifoam 10%. has a unique peak that is shifting to the right (towards smaller

30
Pressures pectrum

20
(water)

10

8
Pressure spectrum
(antifoam 5%)

12
Pressures pectrum
(antifoam 10%)

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Frequency, Hz

Fig. 13. Sound spectra: solid: UG = 0.0094 m/s, dot: UG = 0.0378 m/s, dashed: UG = 0.0661 m/s and dash-and-dot: UG = 0.0994 m/s.
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622 3619

2.20

Bubble radius, mm
2.00

1.80

1.60

1.40
(a)

2.20

2.00
Bubble radius, mm

1.80

1.60

1.40
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
(b) UG (m/s)

Fig. 14. Average bubble radius: solid: water, dot: antifoam 5%, dashed: antifoam 10%, (a) based on sound spectra and (b) based on counted bubble pulsation.

0.25 multiple peaks. One can conclude that the tap water operates
closer to a homogeneous regime while the antifoam solution
seems to depart away from the homogeneous regime. The in-
tensity of the power spectra and the homogeneity of the bubble
0.20
size may explain the amplified Prms of the tap water.
To emphasize the effect of the antifoaming agent on bubble
size, the average bubble radius is computed by two means. One
0.15 way is to compute the weighted bubble-radius based on the
Gas holdup

power spectra as follows:

n
Pr (fi )R(fi )
0.10 Rave = i=1 n . (12)
i=1 Pr (fi )
In Eq. (12) and considering the power spectra shown in
Fig. 13, it is assumed that each point in the frequency domain
0.05
(x-axis) of the spectra plot corresponds to a bubble oscillating
at that specific value of frequency. Since the plot in Fig. 13
is continuous we must carry out the summation over a finite
0.00 number of steps. Therefore, n is the number of data points
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 which depends on the step size. The step size can be chosen
UG (m/s) arbitrary. In the same way, the value of the pressure power
(Pr ) is the weight for that specific oscillation and R is the cor-
Fig. 15. Gas holdup as a validation measure for bubble quantity; ‘+’, ‘×’ responding bubble radius computed via Eq. (1). Alternatively,
symbols denote two independent experiments for 5% antifoam solution; ‘’ , the average bubble radius can be computed from
‘∇’ symbols denote two independent experiments for 10% antifoam solution;
fi =3000
fi =500 na (fi )R(fi )
‘*’, ‘◦’ symbols denote two independent experiments for tap water.
Rave = fi =3000 . (13)
fi =500 na (fi )
bubble size) as gas velocity propagates. On the other hand,
the spectra for the antifoam solutions do not show a uniform Accordingly, na is the relative bubble density at a given fre-
trend. In fact, the spectrum of the antifoam solutions possesses quency. Considering Fig. 4 as an example, na is obtained
3620 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622

1.0 4
UG = 0.009 m/s UG = 0.019 m/s

No.x 1000
0.5 2

0.0 0
3.0 6
UG = 0.028 m/s UG = 0.038 m/s
No. x 1000

2.0 4

1.0 2

0.0 0
4.0 16
UG = 0.047 m/s UG = 0.057 m/s
No. x 1000

2.0 8

0.0 0
6.0 2
UG = 0.066 m/s UG = 0.076 m/s
No. x 1000

3.0 1

0.0 0
6.0 6
UG = 0.085 m/s UG = 0.094 m/s
No. x 1000

4.0 4

2.0 2

0.0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
Frequency, kHz Frequency, kHz

Fig. 16. Bubble density (quantity) distribution for 5% antifoam solution.

directly from the y-axis in the bubble-size distribution plots.
Eq. (13) provides more realistic estimates of the average bubble
size because it is based on authentic detected bubble oscilla-
tion. Moreover, Eq. (13) is evaluated only at specific values for
f at which bubble pulsation is discovered, i.e., the summation is
carried out over finite discrete points comprising the detected
bubble pulsations. Fig. 14 shows the results of using Eqs. (12)
and (13). It is evident that for the case of tap water the bubble
radius is almost constant (around 1.5 mm) over the entire gas
velocities. For the case of 10% antifoam solution, the bubble
radius starts from 2.1 mm and reduces with gas superficial ve-
locity till it reaches a value of 1.6 mm. For the case of 5% an-
tifoam solution, the bubble radius distribution is similar to that
for 10% antifoam solution except at high gas velocity where
the bubble radius increases again. This observation was also
noticed in Fig. 5. One can also conclude that the addition of
antifoam produces larger bubble sizes over the operating range
of gas velocities.
4.4. Bubble-size distribution
Several authors have tried to estimate the actual number
of bubbles existing in sparged systems using Eq. (8). How-
ever, these estimated bubble counts are not validated against
measured values. It is not easy to measure the true bubble counts
directly. Therefore, we will infer the bubble counts indirectly
from the measured gas holdup. We assume that the total gas
volume trapped in the liquid phase is the sum of the volume of
all entrained bubbles. In this case, one can estimate the bubble
count using Eq. (9) from which estimation of the gas holdup can
be obtained. A good confidence on the calculated bubble count
can be achieved when the discrepancy between the calculated
gas holdup and the measured one approaches zero. To estimate
the bubble density using Eq. (9), the parameter C needs to be
specified. According to Pandit et al. (1992) C is a lumped pa-
rameter of the bubble radius ratio, physical properties and the
distance between the bubble and the hydrophone. To determine
a suitable value for C and hence the bubble quantity, we solve
the following optimization problem:
min e = (G exp − Gcal )2 (14)
C
subject to
Vg
Gcal = , (15)
Vg + V l
n

Vg = na (C, fi , Pri )Vb (Ri ), (16)
i=1
 W.A. Al-Masry et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 61 (2006) 3610 – 3622 3621

where Vl is the liquid-phase volume, and na is the bubble quan- antifoam solutions is greater than that for tap water. Moreover,
tity for a specific volume Vb that can be computed using Eq. a rigorous method for estimating the bubble-size distribution is
(9). Note that Eq. (14) is solved repeatedly at each superficial proposed. The method is based on numerical optimization and
gas velocity using MATLAB software. For each gas velocity, is validated with experimental data for gas holdup.
C is allowed to have a different value.
The result of applying the above optimization to a typical
experimental run for 5% antifoam solution is shown in Figs. 15 Notation
and 16. The solution of the optimization problem will result
in an optimum value for C denoted as C ∗ . The solid line in C constant in Eq. (9)
Fig. 15 represents the experimental value of the holdup while C∗ optimum value of C
the ‘+’ sign indicates the calculated holdup obtained from Cpg specific heat of gas, for air ∼ 0.24 cal/gm
solving the optimization problem (Eq. (12)). The excellent D column diameter, m
agreement between the calculated and measured holdup is DR decay ratio
obvious. The corresponding bubble density (quantity) is shown f frequency, Hz
in Fig. 16 for each gas velocity. The figure shows presumably f0 pulsation frequency, Hz
the true number of bubbles that exist at each frequency which k wave number
indicates that exiting bubble quantity may range from 500 to Kg thermal conductivity of gas, for air ∼ 5.6 ×
5000. For each gas velocity, the sum of all bubble quantities 10−5 cal/cm s ◦ C
multiplied by their corresponding volume comprises the gas na number of bubbles
voidage in the system. The other plots shown in Fig. 15 that p pressure at the hydrophone, Pa
were indicated by different symbols are the calculated gas P instantaneous sound pressure, Pa
holdup for different experimental runs. Some of the runs are for P0 absolute pressure of the liquid, Pa
5% antifoam solution and some are for 10% antifoam solution. p0 initial pressure of the bubble oscillation, Pa
These calculated holdups are obtained using Eqs. (15) and (16) Pr resultant measured pressure, Pa
for a fixed optimum value of C, i.e., C ∗ obtained previously. Prms the root means square of the pressure measure-
A set of bubble-size distributions similar to those in Fig. 15 ment, Pa
is produced. These bubble-size distributions are not shown for r distant between the hydrophone and detected
brevity. There is an obvious mismatch between the calculated bubble sound, mm
and the measured holdup especially at high gas velocity where R0 bubble radius, mm
heterogeneity is expected. The mismatch is due to the mea- Rave average bubble radius, mm
sured sound spectra, i.e., Pr , which may vary slightly from run t time, s
to run. However, the idea is not to calculate the gas holdup but T sampling time, s
to use it as a benchmark. This means that the resulted bubble UG superficial gas velocity, m/s
count is considered acceptable if the gas holdup computed Vb bubble specific volume
from the bubble count is close enough to its benchmark value. Vg gas-phase volume, m3
Vl liquid-phase volume, m3
X constant defined by Eq. (5)
5. Conclusions
Greek letters
It is well known that the addition of surfactant species affects  exponential decay constant
the surface tension of air bubbles in water. This work aimed  ratio of specific heat = 1.4 for air
at examining the impact of 5% and 10% antifoam solutions on  damping constant
bubble characteristics. The results indicated that gas holdup in r radiation damping constant
tap water decreases upon addition of antifoam agents. It is also t thermal dampingconstant
found that tap water possesses a uniform bubble diameter over v viscous damping constant
a wide range of, and unique bubble distribution for each, su- Gcal calculated gas holdup
perficial velocity. On the other hand, the addition of antifoam G exp experimental gas holdup
created a heterogeneous bubbling environment. In fact, larger  liquid shear viscosity, for water ∼ 0.01 gm/cm s
bubble sizes were observed in the case of antifoam solutions  liquid density, for water ∼ 0.998 gm/cm3
especially at low gas velocities. Large bubble sizes disappear g air density, for air ∼ 1.29 × 10−3 gm/cm3
at high velocities maybe because of bubble break up due to
0 radian frequency, Hz
turbulence. The damping coefficient of bubble pulsation was
also found to increase with gas velocity for both tap water and
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