Abstract
Among the most important variables in the design of falling film microreactors (FFMRs) is the liquid film thickness as well as the interfacial area between gas and liquid phases. The scope of the present work is to investigate the suitability of a micro-Particle Image Velocimetry (μ-PIV), a common optical non-intrusive technique, both for estimating the thickness of the liquid film and for determining the shape of the interface. Experiments were conducted in two open inclined, rectangular microchannels with widths 1200 and 600μm. The results proved that μ-PIV is an effective method for investigating the hydrodynamic characteristics of thin liquid films encountered in FFMRs. It was also found that as the microchannel becomes narrower, for the same normalized mass flow rate thicker films are formed. As it is expected correlations widely used for predicting liquid film thickness are not valid in such small dimensions.
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