Experimental and numerical study of the peculiarities of the multicomponent gas mixtures separation under natural gravity convection
IntroductionThe description of isothermal diffusion in multicomponent mixtures is described by the StefanMaxwell equations [1] and, in comparison with binary systems, has a number of features [2], which consist in the absence of component transfer at a nonzero concentration gradient; transferring a component with the zero value of its gradient; bidirectional (reverse) diffusion. Another manifestation of special modes of multicomponent diffusion is the appearance of convection leading to a synergistic effect associated with a significant increase in the mixing speed of the components of the system [3]. Experiments and numerical studies on the vapor diffusion of binary solutions into an inert gas [3,4] have shown the possibility of the occurrence of convective instability in such systems. The effects described in [3,4] are consistent with the results given in [5,6] in which the appearance of structured convective currents is considered when changing the "diffusion-convection" regimes at different pressures and compositions.In this paper, experimental data on the study of isothermal diffusion and convective mixing in multicomponent gas mixtures 0.6179 H2 + 0.3821 N2 -CH4, 0.7760 CH4 + 0.2240 R12 -n-C4H10 are presented. By the methods of 2D modeling, the possibility of the appearance of structured convective flows in the course of diffusion at various mixing times is studied numerically.