Numerical studies on SiO2 generation in swirling turbulent non‐premixed flames using SiCl4 as the precursor

Abstract

AbstractSilica nanoparticles have been widely applied in many fields due to their excellent properties. SiO2 generation is crucial for silica particle formation, but in a swirling reactor the SiO2 generation is still unclear. In this study, numerical simulations are performed to investigate the SiO2 generation and distributions of temperature and velocity during silica particle synthesis using a swirling reactor. A computational model is first developed to describe the heat and mass transport in the swirling turbulent flame. Simulation models are validated with experimental data in the case without SiO2 chemistry. Then, effects of the fuel velocity and swirl number on SiO2 generation are investigated. Results show that most of the SiO2 molecules are generated in the region far away from reactor inlets and a relatively high SiO2 generation efficiency is obtained for a fuel velocity of 32.7 m/second. Distributions of the flame temperature, velocity and SiO2 concentration are found to vary with the swirl number and high chemical reaction rates for SiO2 generation are obtained when a swirl number of 0.5 is employed. Uncertainty analysis shows that the average relative errors of the results from different models are within 18%.