Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications
Comparative efficiency of shear, elongation and turbulent droplet breakup mechanisms: Review and application
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Journal
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH & DESIGN
Volume
91
Issue
12
First Page
2587
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2013.03.017
Last Page
2600
Abstract
The study of phase dispersion of two immiscible fluids in different flows requires identifying the relevant breakup mechanisms. We propose here a detailed investigation of droplet breakup in a multifunctional exchanger-reactor of the vortex generator type in which transfer intensification is due to longitudinal vortical structures. We compare the efficiency of the mean gradients and turbulent mechanisms in droplet breakup in this industrial reactor. This efficiency is essentially characterized by the resulting distribution of droplet diameters. Then, the roles of the mean flow and the turbulent field, intensity, energy spectrum, and turbulence scales are examined in relation to the liquid/liquid dispersion in order to explore the governing mechanisms of drop breakup. In the complex flow considered here - nonhomogeneous and anisotropic turbulence at moderate Reynolds numbers (<15,000) - with weak turbulence intensity (about 10%), it can be demonstrated that turbulent breakup mechanisms largely dominate mean flow effects; elongation and shear effects are shown to have minor effects on the breakup mechanisms. Moreover, the global characteristic scales of the flow are not the relevant parameters in predicting the final size of the emulsion, but instead the Kolmogorov microscale, implying that the residence time in the reactor is not a limiting factor. Hence, the local dissipation rate governs the performance of the actual multifunctional reactor. This study provides some insight in the design and scaling-up of multiphase reactors. (C) 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.