Quantitative Prediction Of Flow Patterns In Liquid-Liquid Flow In Micro-Capillaries

Flow patterns in microstructured reactors (or microchannels) play an important role in dictating the mass transfer rates. In the present work, experiments were carried out to investigate the two phase (liquids) flow patterns in microchannels with different cross sections and contacting geometries. The pattern formation was analysed and conditions were classified in the three regions: surface tension dominated (slug flow), transition (slug-drop and deformed interface flow) and inertia dominated region (annular or parallel flow). A criterion for liquid-liquid flow pattern transition was developed using Capillary and Reynolds numbers based on the work of Dessimoz et al. Ill for gas-liquid systems. Finally, it was applied to the literature data and good agreement was obtained. The criterion is suitable for capillaries with hydraulic diameter up to 3 mm independently of cross section form and is an important predictive tool for the rational design of micro reactors for liquid-liquid reactions. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Lioubov Kiwi, Madhvanand Namadeo Kashid
2011
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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/167687?ln=en

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Related concepts (4)

Nuclear reactor

A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid (water or gas), which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating.

Surface tension

Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. water striders) to float on a water surface without becoming even partly submerged. At liquid–air interfaces, surface tension results from the greater attraction of liquid molecules to each other (due to cohesion) than to the molecules in the air (due to adhesion). There are two primary mechanisms in play.

Mass transfer coefficient

In engineering, the mass transfer coefficient is a diffusion rate constant that relates the mass transfer rate, mass transfer area, and concentration change as driving force: Where: is the mass transfer coefficient [mol/(s·m2)/(mol/m3)], or m/s is the mass transfer rate [mol/s] is the effective mass transfer area [m2] is the driving force concentration difference [mol/m3]. This can be used to quantify the mass transfer between phases, immiscible and partially miscible fluid mixtures (or between a fluid and a porous solid).