EPTT 2022

13th Spring School on Transition and Turbulence

INVESTIGATION OF TRANSITIONAL REGIME FLOW IN THE NETMIX MILLI-PHOTOREACTOR

Submission Author: Tatiana Matiazzo , SC
Co-Authors: Tatiana Matiazzo, Natan Padoin, Cíntia Soares
Presenter: Tatiana Matiazzo

doi://10.26678/ABCM.EPTT2022.EPT22-0013

 

Abstract

Continuous flow microfluids technology has several applications, including photocatalysis. The main challenges of photocatalytic reactors are related to photon and mass transfer. The velocity field inside a micro/milli-reactor influences the mass transfer. An important issue in microfluidics is related to slow mixing due to laminar flow in low Reynolds numbers. One alternative to improve mixing efficiency is to force the flow to be turbulent, which translates into fast diffusion, chaotic and continuous flow, great dissipation rate, multiscale eddies and 3D motion. There is still discussion into the possibility of such flow to be reached in milli/microfluidic devices due to its characteristic low Reynolds numbers. However, recent studies have shown the existence of turbulence in microchannels operating at a Reynolds number as low as 1. In the current work, the flow inside a milli-photocatalytic reactor known as NETmix was investigated for Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.2 to approximately 3,500. The pressure drop and the friction factor were evaluated in order to identify laminar and transitional flow regimes. A critical Reynolds number can be identified, indicating a clear laminar regime flow that presents a friction factor approximately equivalent to 32/Re and the region where transitional fluid flow begins.

Keywords

NETmix, Heterogeneous Photocatalysis, Turbulence, Microfluidics, laminar flow

 

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