Computational fluid dynamic investigating the reactive species transfer across the interface of a single rising bubble

Abstract

This study implements a new solver (reactiveInterFoam) to simulate the component mass transfer alongside deformable gas–liquid interfaces. Mass transfer from the rising bubble in a quiescent Newtonian fluid is simulated. An effect of bubble hydrodynamics on the simultaneous diffusion reaction and selectivity of the cyclohexane oxidation process is investigated on a two-dimensional axisymmetric domain. The color function volume of fluid (CF-VoF) technique is applied to capture the deformable interface, and the continuous species transfer method is used to monitor the gas–liquid mass transfer behavior. Several simulations have been conducted to validate the model reliability to forecast component mass transfer from the bubble to the liquid phase, bubble shape, and flow field. Simulation findings approved that the rate of mass transfer is a function of boundary’s concentration, layer thickness, and bubble surface area. Furthermore, the selectivity increases by decreasing bubble diameter in both spherical and ellipsoidal regimes. The small bubbles with a lower Reynolds number have higher average selectivity. Comparing the simulated bubble shape and the grace chart indicates that the suggested numerical method can perfectly predict bubble regimes. The absolute average relative deviation (AARD%) of 14.59% has been observed between the terminal velocities predicted by the numerical simulation and six experimental measurements.