Effect of Hydrodynamic Heterogeneity on Micromixing in a Taylor-Couette
Flow Reactor with Lobed Inner Cylinder
Abstract
Effect of hydrodynamic heterogeneity on micromixing intensification in a
Taylor-Couette flow reactor (TC) with variable configurations of inner
cylinder has been investigated by adoption of a parallel competing
iodide-iodate reaction system. Two types of inner cylinder, circular
inner cylinder and lobed inner cylinder (CTC and LTC), were used to
generate hydrodynamic hydrodynamic heterogeneity for comparison of the
micromixing intensification, focusing on the effects of the Reynolds
number of the TC reactor, the acid concentration, and the feeding time.
The Segregation index (Xs) was employed to evaluate the micromixing
efficiency. It was revealed that Xs decreases with the increase of
Reynolds number and feeding time but increases with the increase of acid
concentration for both the CTC and LTC. However, the LTC does present a
better micromixing performance at various operating conditions than that
of the CTC as affirmed by both the experimental and computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) simulation results.