Direct numerical simulations of fluids mixing above mixture critical point

Abstract

Direct numerical simulations are performed to quantify the mixing performance of reactors commonly used for crystallization assisted by supercritical fluid above the mixture critical point. Two different reactors are tested: the semi-continuous reactor of milliliter volume range and the continuous microfluidic chip of nanoliter volume range. The current work shows that high performance computing (HPC) is a modern tool useful to analyze various designs and to quantify performances in chemical engineering. In-depth discussions on the numerical methods chosen to strike a good balance between accuracy and CPU time are presented. Physical analysis is also conducted with an emphasis on the turbulent mixing performance of the reactors. The results show a good mixing for the supercritical technologies considered and underline the increased mixing performance of the microfluidic chip.