Water-sparged aerocyclone(WSA)is a new type of gas-liquid mass transfer equipment with high efficiency.The gas phase pressure drop characteristics in WSA was investigated in this study.With the increase of inlet gas velocity(ug)

the liquid jet presents three patterns: steady-state jet

deformed spiral jet and atomized spiral jet

and the pressure drop curves in WSA can be divided into three different regions

i.e.

low pressure drop

abruptly increased pressure drop and high pressure drop.In the low pressure drop region

the liquid holdup in outlet gas(εL)is almost zero

and the gas pressure drop in WSA(Δp)increases with ug.In the second region

εL develops from zero and Δp increases abruptly.In the high pressure drop region

εL and Δp increase with ug. The mechanism of the three pressure drop regions is discussed.A non-dimensional empirical model is developed for the regions with low and high pressure drop

which correlates the Euler number with the gas Reynolds number based on the available experimental data and can be well used to predict the pressure drop in WSA.