Abstract To investigate the effect of redistributors on the multiphase flows in the scale-up of airlift reactors, the Euler-Euler two fluid model are adopted to simulate the influence of redistributors on gas holdups, liquid circulation velocity and the distribution of solid concentration. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model shows excellent agreement with the measured data on total gas holdup. This research demonstrates that the height of redistributors increasing can make gas holdup in the bubble riser non-monotone trend and promote the solid concentration in the downcomer, however, has little effect on the total gas holdups and liquid circulation velocity. Therefore, the design of redistributors have been optimized by combining CFD simulation and experiment, which is benefit for strengthening the processes of multiphase flow, mass-transfer, reactions in the airlift reactors.
