Investigation of Micro-Mixing and Energy Dissipation in a Microreactor with Coaxial Chambers and Counter-Current Swirling Flows
摘要
A study has been conducted on the specific energy dissipation rate and the quality of micro-mixing (using the iodide/iodate technique) in a microreactor with coaxial chambers and intensively counter-current swirling flows (MRISF-CC-2) under various flow inlet configurations within a wide range of flow rates. The dependence of the specific energy dissipation rate on flow rates was investigated, and the relationship between micromixing quality (expressed as the segregation index) and the specific energy dissipation rate was established for three different solution inlet configurations. The highest specific energy dissipation rate have been observed when streams are fed through the tangential inlet nozzle of the inner chamber and the axial inlet nozzle. Comparable values were obtained for the case of feeding through the tangential inlet nozzle to the outer chamber and the axial inlet nozzle, while slightly lower values were recorded when feeding solution through the tangential inlet nozzles of both the outer and inner chambers. Comparison of the segregation index with that for three other types of microreactors has demonstrated that all three inlet schemes in MRISF-CC-2 provide significantly better micro-mixing quality. The micro-mixing performance of MRISF-CC-2 has been found to be somewhat superior to that of MRISF-CC-1 (with opposed chambers and intensively counter-current swirling flows). The presence of three high-intensity mixing zones and two intensive mixing zones in microreactors with intensively counter-current swirling flows (MRISF-CC-1 and MRISF-CC-2) offers broad potential for their application in multistage synthesis processes for nano- and submicrometer inorganic particles, including composite materials.