Oxygenation performance of a laboratory-scale Speece Cone hypolimnetic aerator: preliminary assessment

A prototype laboratory-scale Speece Cone hypolimnetic aerator was used to examine the effect of oxygen input rate and outlet port water velocity on oxygen transfer, using four standard units of measure for quantifying oxygen transfer: (i) the oxygen transfer coefficient at 20 °C, KLa20 (h–1); (ii) the standard oxygen transfer rate (SOTR) (g O2·h–1); (iii) the standard aeration efficiency (SAE) (g O2 kW·h–1); and (iv) the standard oxygen transfer efficiency (SOTE) (%). The maximum inlet velocity (i.e., 70 cm·s–1) was only 23% of the recommended design velocity (i.e., 305 cm·s–1), and the two-phase bubble swarm did not properly develop inside the cone, but remained as a gas pocket at the top of the cone, resulting in a drastically reduced bubble surface area to water ratio. Therefore, all of the performance measures from this prototype Speece Cone were much lower than would be expected with the recommended design inlet velocity of 305 cm·s−1. Despite this difference, the system was still capable of oxygen transfer efficiencies of about 61%, under low gas flow rates, which is still higher than any full-lift design hypolimnetic aerator operating on air. Future research efforts are focused on building a pilot-scale Speece Cone, with as close to the correct inlet and outlet velocities, hydraulic residence time, and physical dimensions as possible, such that a two-phase bubble swarm could be generated. Once this experimental data is collected and analyzed, it can be properly compared with predictive models.