Study on oxygen transfer by solid jet aerator with multiple openings

In the current study, two different sets of solid jet aerators having area of openings equal to 594.96 mm2 and 246.30 mm2 with rectangular nozzles having rounded ends were studied. Each set consisted of aerators having one, two, four and eight openings. The oxygenation performance of every model was studied for five different discharges of 1.11 l/s, 2.10 l/s, 2.96 l/s, 3.83 l/s and 4.69 l/s. At low discharges, the aerator having lesser number of openings demonstrated more oxygen-transfer efficiency whereas at higher discharges, the aerator having more number of openings yielded more oxygenation-efficiency. Maximum value of oxygen-transfer efficiency of 21.53 kg-O2/kW-hr was obtained for the discharge of 1.11 l/s for single nozzle aerator; however the maximum oxygen-transfer factor of 2.0 × 10−2 s−1 was obtained at discharge of 4.69 l/s for aerator having eight numbers of openings having area of 594.96 mm2. On the other hand, maximum oxygen transfer efficiency of 10.93 kg-O2/kW-hr was demonstrated by aerator with single opening at a discharge of 1.11 l/s and maximum oxygen transfer factor of 7.83 × 10−3 s−1 was obtained from aerator with eight openings at a discharge of 4.69 l/s corresponding to set of aerators with area of openings equal to 246.30 mm2. Multiple non-linear regression modelling was applied to predict oxygen transfer of the aerators for different combinations of input parameters. At the end, the models were compared with conventional methods of aeration and were found to be competitive with traditional devices.