Computational analysis of an instantaneous chemical reaction in a T‐microreactor

Abstract

in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).We extend and apply a method for the numerical computation of convective and diffusive mixing in liquid systems with very fast irreversible chemical reaction to the case of unequal diffusivities. This approach circumvents the solution of stiff differential equations and, hence, facilitates the direct numerical simulation of reactive flows with quasi-instantaneous reactions. The method is validated by means of a neutralization reaction which is studied in a T-shaped micromixer and compared with existing experimental LIF-data. Because of their large are-to-volume ratio, microreactors are well suited for fast chemical reactions which are seriously affected by the slow diffusive transport in aqueous media. Numerical computations for different reactor dimensions reveal the fact that, in a dimensionless setting, the obtained conversion is independent of the reactor size, if the flow conditions are the same. This corresponds to an increase of space-time-yield proportional to the square of the inverse scale factor.

High‐Throughput T‐Jets Mixers: An Innovative Scale‐Up Concept

“…Mixing studies on opposed-jets mixers, namely confined impinging jets (CIJ) mixers and T-jets mixers, have found direct application in several industrial processes such as production of polymers [1] and nanoparticles [2] and in processes involving fast chemical reactions [3]. T-jets and other continuous reactors have been successfully tested for nanoparticle production at industrial scale: CIJ precipitator [2], T-jets mixers [4], and industrial-scale network mixers [5].…”

Numerical Study of Split T‐Micromixers

“…This is why they have been intensively investigated in recent years [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. This is why they have been intensively investigated in recent years [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

“…This is why they have been intensively investigated in recent years [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. These micromixers are junction elements often involved in more complex microsystems [26], and have been found to be best suited for liquid mixing, as proven by Bokenkamp et al [14]. Parallel lamination is achieved by splitting solute and solvent flows into sub-streams and joining them in the mixing channel, while sequential lamination is achieved by pushing the fluid through appropriate channel geometries [5,12].…”

Numerical investigation of flow regimes in T‐shaped micromixers: Benchmark between finite volume and spectral element methods

“…Numerical simulations are computationally expensive especially in the case of unsteady regimes that require the use of direct numerical simulations (DNS). Moreover, there is debate on the grid resolution that should be adopted to accurately predict the concentration field, especially in the case of chemical reactions …”