Abstract
Heart-shaped microreactor (Advanced Flow Reactor, AFR) has been widely applied in industry, in which heart-shaped structure is important to break droplet or bubble up for mass transfer enhancement. The dynamics of bubble breakup in AFR (Channel A) and an improved AFR (Channel B) was visually investigated. Breakup regime with permanent obstruction was observed to undergo three stages: squeezing, transition and pinch-off. Results indicated that bubble breakup in Channel B has wider operating range, shorter time than those in Channel A. Moreover, the influences of various factors on bubble breakup in Channel B were studied systematically. It was found that the mother length (l0/wc) has only slight impact on breakup process, total capillary number (Ca) has always positive promoting effect on breakup during each stage, increasing liquid phase viscosity (μL) could facilitate the breakup in the squeezing and transition stages, while delay the thinning rate of bubble neck in the pinch-off stage.
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