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The operational principles of air-lift reactor (ALR) are based on the injected air as the power source for the effective stirring within gas, liquid and solid phases. ALR possesses simple structure without complex assembling units. There are excellent gas absorption, heat transfer and mixing characteristic in the ALR. Besides, ALR has advantages in the low cost of automatic instrumentation and energy consumption. Therefore, ALR has wide applications in the chemical and fermentation industries. In this study a 50 kilotons industrial-scale ALR has been designed based on the safety criteria of high-pressure tank regulations in the handbook of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The mechanical design in the bottom part of ALR has a switching device for the alternative requirement of central draft tube/disc for the internal-loop circulation or jet for the gas-liquid double stream injection. We also proposed a mechanical design method for the transformation from the traditional stirring tank to the ALR.
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