Abstract:Airlift loop reactors are widely used in the hydrometallurgical industry, including cyanide leaching of gold, uranium leaching, the bacterial oxidation of pyrite and copper leaching. Although the geometry of airlift loop reactors are usually simple, the reasonable design is still needed. To predict the performance of this kind of reactors, the Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid method was used for modeling gas-liquid flow driven by bubbles, and extra user defined subroutines were incorporated to consider the complex physics. Bubble induced turbulence, lift and turbulent dispersion forces were evaluated in the numerical simulations of the bubble path dispersion in airlift loop reactors. The simulation results have been compared with the experimental measurements of Sokolichin et al.[1]. Some reasonable agreements have been obtained both in flow structures and bubble distribution.