Enhancement of liquideliquid micromixing performance in curved capillary microreactor by generation of Dean vortices

Micromixing efficiency is an important parameter for evaluating the multiphase mass transfer performance and reaction efficiency of microreactors.In this work,the novel curved capillary reactor with different shapes was designed to generate Dean flow,which was used to enhance the liquideliquid micromixing performance.The VillermauxeDushman probe reaction was employed to characterize the micromixing performance in different curved capillary microreactors.The effects of experiment parameters such as liquid flow rate,inner diameter,tube length,and curve diameter on micromixing performance were systematically investigated.Under the optimal conditions,the minimum value of the segmentation factor XS was 0.008.It was worth noting that at the low Reynolds number(Re<30),the change of curved shape on the capillary microreactor can significantly improve the micromixing performance with XS reduced by 37.5%.Further,the correlations of segment index XS with dimensionless factor such as Reynolds number or Dean number were developed,which can be used to predict the liquide liquid micromixing performance in capillary microreactors.

Micromixing performance of the teethed high shear mixer under semi-batch operation

Semi-batch operated reaction processes are necessary for some competitive reaction systems to achieve a desirable process selectivity and productivity of fine chemical products.Herein the structural and operating parameters of the teethed high shear mixers were adjusted to study the micromixing performance in the semi-batch operated system,using the Villermaux/Dushman reaction system.The results indicate that the rising of the rotor speed and the number of rotor teeth,the decrease of the width of the shear gap and the radial distance between the feed position and the inner wall of stator can enhance the micromixing level and lead to the decrease of the segregation index.Additionally,computational fluid dynamics calculations were carried out to disclose the evolution of the flow pattern and turbulent energy dissipation rate of the semi-batch operated high shear mixer.Furthermore,the correlation was established with a mean relative error of 8.05%and R^(2)of 0.955 to fit the segregation index and the parameters studied in this work,which can provide valuable guidance on the design and optimization of the semi-batch operated high shear mixers in practical applications.