Gas absorption in a hydraulic air compressor. Part II: Experimental verification

•Hydrodynamics and mass transfers in downward homogenous bubbly flow characterised.•Downcomer model formulation augmented to transient via a simple finite difference scheme.•Consistency obtained between modelled and experimental results in gas and liquid phases.•Systematic variation of tracer gas species ingestion with up to ∼10% CO2 in inlet gas phase.•Pressure-swing degassing in riser duct experimentally confirmed at pilot scale. Experimental verification of a one-dimensional steady-state bubbly flow model is presented. For initialisation of the liquid-phase concentrations of gas species, a formulation for modelling the time-evolution of the concentration of dissolved gas species in the circulating liquid of a hydraulic air compressor (HAC) was developed and integrated with the steady-state bubbly flow model. Observations from experiments conducted on a pilot scale HAC are presented employing CO2 as a tracer gas. The composition of the input gas inducted by the pilot HAC was deliberately varied by mixing different controlled amounts of CO2 gas while continuously monitoring the gas and liquid phase concentrations of CO2 at key points in the HAC process. Predictions of the concentration of CO2 in the compressed gas produced by the pilot HAC and the circulating liquid at system equilibrium were in good agreement with measured values. Concentrations of CO2 measured in the gas above the tailrace water level were elevated above background levels and responded in accordance with the input CO2 gas mass flow and liquid CO2 concentrations indicating exsolution of gas from the liquid as predicted. Observations of the pH of the circulating liquid identified the bicarbonate equilibrium as the likely mechanism for CO2(aq) production not captured by the model which caused the model to under predict CO2(aq) concentrations for experiment set points with CO2(aq) concentrations above 140 ppm.