Study on liquid–liquid two-phase mass transfer characteristics in the microchannel with deformed insert

In this work, the liquid-liquid two-phase mass transfer characteristics in the microchannel with deformed insert were studied. The experiment used di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid/kerosene-Cu^(2+)as the mass transfer evaluation system. The effects of some key factors such as the total flow velocity,channel inner diameter, channel length, insert diameter, extractant concentration on the extraction efficiency and mass transfer coefficient were systematically investigated. Compared with a simple microreactor, the liquid-liquid mass transfer enhancement effect of the insert was quantitatively analyzed. The study found that the regular deformation of the insert could cause fluid interface deformation and promote flow state chaos, effectively increasing the mass transfer rate. And the enhancement effect of the insert was more significant at high flow velocities. The highest mass transfer coefficient in the microchannel with deformed insert was 7.886 s^(-1), the enhancement factor could reach 4.17. And only needed 0.095 s to approach the extraction equilibrium. The deformed center insert exhibited an effective liquid-liquid mass transfer enhancement effect, which can be used as a micro-chemical process enhancement method to be applied in the fields of higher throughput mass transfer and chemical synthesis,and at the same time provide ideas for development and structural optimization of microreactors.