Study On The Flow Patterns Of An Oscillatory Flow Reactor With Orifice Baffles

As a new type efficient reactor, oscillatory flow reactor (OFR) bears peculiar flow patterns with the periodically spaced baffles in the tube, therefore, overwhelmingly enhances the mass and heat transfer. Various oscillatory parameters can offer variable mixing features and so it would be used widely. Our previous research work showed that the flow patterns in OFR were complicated, changing with different oscillatory intensity and unable to be characterized by a single simple flow model. On the base of the study results of PIV, we built up two new flow models, that is, serial multi-tank model with divided cell, secondary flow, intra- and inter-cell back-mixing (SMTSDCSIIB) and serial multi-tank model with secondary flow and inter-cell back-mixing (SMTSIB), to describe the flow patterns with middle and high oscillatory intensity respectively.In this thesis we use the alkaline hydrolysis of ethyl acetate as the template chemical reaction to testify the ability of flow pattern models to predict the reaction performance of OFR, by comparing residual concentrations of alkaline in experiments and those calculated by different models. We also examine the applicability of different models under a large range of oscillatory intensities. The results illustrate that the model of simple multiple tank is suitable for low oscillatory intensity, but the error would be greater with middle or high intensity. SMTTDCSIIB is preferable to other models under middle oscillatory intensity. Both SMTSIB and the model of simple multiple tank model with back-mixing can be used in high oscillatory intensity, but the former is much more accurate. As referred to the model of axial dispersion, we cannot gain satisfied results to describe the flow patterns of OFR in any range of oscillatory intensity.