Work package 3.3 - Experimental studies on mass transfer and local flow parameters in monoliths, foam structures and structure elements

Principal Investigator: Prof. M. Schlüter (TU Hamburg-Harburg)

PhD student: Dipl.-Ing. Christian-Ole Möller

Main Scientific Goals:

Structured packings are widely used in multiphase apparatuses. They can enhance mass transfer processes and thereby affect hydrodynamic parameters like gas holdup, pressure drop and local flow fields. In this work package novel structures like periodic open cell structures (pocs) and foam like structures are used in a bubble column operation. The structure elements are additively manufactured by stereolithography to precisely adjust geometry parameters. The goal of this research is to identify the influence of defined geometry parameters on the mass transfer performance of a structured element with respect to the resulting pressure drop and energy dissipation. An optimized structure element regarding the ratio of mass transfer performance and energy dissipation for a bubble column apparatus is intended. Thereby the optical measurement technique Laser Induced Fluorescence is used to relate the mass transfer performance with the local concentration fields for phenomenological explanation.
Particular tasks:

• Identifying the geometry parameter field and manufacturing of structure elements
• Manufacturing of transparent structure elements and adaption of the laser optical measurement technique Laser Induced Fluorescence
• Measurement of local concentration fields in structure elements
• Measurement and calculation of energy specific mass transfer performance for the parameter field

Figure 1: Foam like structure element (left) and periodic open cell structure with pyramidal base cell, both with 5 ppi cell concentration.

Figure 2: Oxygen bubble rising in a periodic open cell structure, Laser Induced Fluorescence raw data (left) and following local concentration field (right).

Cooperations:

• Work package 3.1 - Hydrodynamic characterization of structured apparatuses (HZDR)
• Work package 3.2 - Scale-up of phase dispersion for structured multiphase reactors (RUB)
• Work package 5.3 - X-ray tomography imaging(HZDR)
• Work package 4.2 - Scale-resolving simulation of reactive two-phase flows in monolith and solid foam reactors (KIT-IKFT), (KIT-TVT)
• Work package 2.2 - Ceramic functional structures for tailored chemical reactors (TUD), (IKTS)
• Work package 2.1 - Development and characterization of cellular metallic structures for tailored chemical reactors (FAU)

Publications:

• C.-O. Möller, D. Bezecny, M. Hoffmann, M. Schlüter: Hydrodynamische Charakterisierung definierter Schaumstrukturen mittels Micro Particle Image Velocimetry, Jahrestreffen der Fachgruppen Computational Fluid Dynamics und Mehrphasenströmungen, March 2013, Baden Baden, Germany
• C.-O. Möller, D. Bezecny, M. Hoffmann, M. Schlüter: Experimentelle Untersuchung von Stofftransportprozessen und lokalen Strömungsparametern in periodic open cell structures, Jahrestreffen der Fachgruppen Computational Fluid Dynamics und Mehrphasenströmungen, March 2014, Fulda, Germany