Micromixing Efficiency Enhancement in a Rotating Packed Bed Reactor with Surface-Modified Nickel Foam Packing

Abstract

Micromixing, the mixing at the molecular scale, is believed to play a substantial role in many industrial processes. In this work, a novel surface-modified nickel foam packing (SNP) loaded in a rotating packed bed (RPB) reactor was first proposed to improve the micromixing efficiency studied by adopting the iodide–iodate reaction as a working system. Experimental results showed that the RPB reactor with the SNP presented better micromixing efficiency, compared to the RPB reactor with the nonmodified nickel foam packing (NNP) or traditional stainless steel wire mesh packing (SWP). It could be found that the segregation index (XS) decreased as the rotational speed and liquid flow rate each increased, while it increased with increasing acid concentration and volumetric ratio. Moreover, the micromixing time (tm) was calculated using an incorporation model based on the experimental data. Compared with NNP or SWP, the minimum tm value of SNP (tm = 3.28 ms) is less than that of NNP (tm = 5.68 ms) or SWP (tm = 8....