Influence of Liquid Properties and Design Parameters on Mass Transfer in Gas-Liquid Flow through a Miniaturized Reactor

This paper presents the results of oxygen absorptionfrom air invarious liquid media within a rectangular milli-channel equipped withexchangeable staggered herringbone-like mixing inserts. We have determinedthe volumetric liquid-side mass transfer coefficient k (L) a using three differentliquid substances (water, ethanol, and polypropylene glycol) in arange of superficial liquid velocities of 0.047-0.210 m s(-1) and superficial gas velocities of 0.012-0.210m s(-1). From this data, we derived an empirical k (L) a-correlation.Overall, k (L) a values ranging from 0.036-0.515 s(-1) wereobtained, and the correlation predicts k (L) a with a coefficient of determinationof R (2) = 0.93. We have also examined theinfluences of changing the static mixer design parameters on the masstransfer performance and evaluated the mixer efficiency by takingthe power consumption into account. Depending on liquid properties,the right choice of a mixer design leads to a significant improvementin mass transfer and/or efficiency.