CFD and experimental investigations on the micromixing performance of single countercurrent-flow microchannel reactor

Abstract

Abstract Microchannel reactors are widely used in different fields due to their intensive micromixing and, thus, high mass-transfer efficiency. In this work, a single countercurrent-flow microchannel reactor (S-CFMCR) at the size of ~ 1 mm was developed by steel micro-capillary and laser drilling technology. Utilizing the Villermaux/Dushman parallel competing reaction, numerical and experimental studies were carried out to investigate the micromixing performance (expressed as the segregation index XS) of liquids inside S-CFMCR at the low flow velocity regime. The effects of various operating conditions and design parameters of S-CFMCR, e.g., inlet Reynolds number (Re), volumetric flow ratio (R), inlet diameter (d) and outlet length (L), on the quality of micromixing were studied qualitatively. It was found that the micromixing efficiency was enhanced with increasing Re, but weakened with the increase of R. Moreover, d and L also have a significant influence on micromixing. CFD results were in good agreement with experimental data. In addition, the visualization of velocity magnitude, turbulent kinetic energy and concentration distributions of various ions inside S-CFMCR was illustrated as well. Based on the incorporation model, the estimated minimum micromixing time tm of S-CFMCR is ~ 2 × 10−4 s.