Effect of Drop Interactions on the Performance of Hydrocarbon Fermentors

A drop-interaction model devised by the authors. which successfully predicts experimentally observed drop-size distributions in stirred batch vessels. has been used to assess the importance of droplet coalescence and redispersion in hydrocarbon fermentation yields. Calculations. which have been made with both n-alkane and gas-oil fermentations, have been compared with previous calculations based on simpler and, hence, less realistic droplet interaction mechanisms. The comparison shows that the differences in yield are not spectacularly different.