In recent years, there has been renewed interest in capillary micro reactors due to their particular advantages in mass transport, selectivity and process intensification. Previous studies have revealed significant impact of hydrodynamic properties on the kinetics of the reaction. In this paper, we have studied hydrodynamic behavior of these fluids in Taylor Series Slug Flow Capillary Micro Reactor using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).
In order to get a clear understanding of the effect of physical properties of the fluid (such as surface tension and wall adhesion) on the hydrodynamics of the capillary, 2D and 3D CFD simulations were performed using the volume of fluid (VOF) method in FLUENT.
Simulation results predicted that surface tension forces play a dominant role in determining the slug properties. Secondly, when different materials of constructions were used for the reactor they led to different contact angles on the wall. It was found that the contact angle was a crucial parameter in determining the slug shape, size and velocity vectors. Finally, the effect of inlet flow rates was also investigated. It was found that the rate of internal circulation and slug properties were functions of flow rates but, physical properties had higher impact on simulation results.
Keywords: Slug Flow Reactor, Micro Reactor, CFD, Process Intensification.