| Wed February 10th 2016 16:00 – 16:30 ZH286 | Seminar | Bubbles on the Cutting Edge Maike Baltussen |
Details:Gas-liquid-solid three-phase flows are frequently encountered in chemical, petrochemical and bio-chemical processes. In many cases, gaseous reactants are converted into liquid products in the presence of a solid catalyst. The main reactor configurations for these processes are trickle bed reactors and bubble slurry columns. These configurations have restrictions due to heat transfer and mass transfer limitations, respectively. In this work a new reactor type is proposed: the micro-structured bubble column. In this new reactor, the catalyst particles are replaced by catalyst-coated static meshes made of thin wires. The wire mesh serves the purpose of cutting the coalesced bubbles into smaller bubbles thereby increasing the specific interfacial area. The interaction with the wire mesh will also enhance the interface dynamics resulting in a higher surface renewal rate, which results in higher mass transfer near the coated wire mesh.To enhance our understanding of the complex prevailing fluid-structure interactions, Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics are useful. To determine these three-phase interactions Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) are used. The model used in this work is based on the combination of two powerful DNS techniques for gas-liquid and fluid-solid systems. After verification of the model, the three phase model is validated for the simplest wire meshes, single wires. Besides the effect of several mesh parameters is studied. | ||
