Experimental study of interfacial mass transfer for the transition from slug to bubbly flow in a rectangular microchannel
G.V. Bartkus1, N.A. Filatov2, A.S. Bukatin2,3, V.V. Kuznetsov1
1Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia 2Alferov Saint Petersburg Academic University of RAS, St. Petersburg, Russia 3Institute for Analytical Instrumentation, St. Petersburg, Russia
Keywords: rectangular microchannel, gas-liquid flow, interfacial mass transfer, CO absorption
Abstract
The structure of a gas-liquid flow and interfacial mass transfer during the transition from the slug to the bubbly flow of ethanol-CO2 mixture in a horizontal straight microchannel were experimentally studied. The experiments were performed for a channel with a rectangular cross section of 141×385 μm in the range of superficial gas and liquid velocities JG = 0.16 - 0.8 m/s and JL = 0.22 - 0.5 m/s. To determine a change in the volume of the elongated bubble along the microchannel length due to CO2 absorption, the method of high-speed visualization with subsequent image processing was applied. The bubble frequency, velocity, size, and change in the volume of gas slugs and bubbles along the channel were measured, and volumetric coefficient of mass transfer from liquid k L a was calculated. The measured volumetric mass transfer coefficient was compared with the known correlations and a new correlation was proposed for the transition from the slug to the bubbly flow due to interfacial mass transfer.
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