Modelling and simulation of multicomponent mass transport at moving liquid-liquid interfaces

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Eugeny Kenig
• Subject Area: Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262779378

Until now, computational methods for mass transfer across moving boundaries have been limited to a few special cases, e.g., with binary diffusion and constant distribution coefficients. Therefore, the investigation of more general systems, which are relevant for technical applications, is hardly feasible. The main target of this project is to establish a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based approach for interfacial mass transfer at moving interfaces. The peculiarity of the approach is that it will be able to govern multicomponent systems and arbitrary equilibrium conditions at the phase interface. As a test system, a droplet rising in a continuous liquid phase will be studied. Both binary and ternary mass transfer will be investigated. Such systems are good representatives of numerous other fluid systems with free moving interfaces. The new approach will be validated with test cases which allow analytical or exact numerical solutions, and with experimental data from the literature. Finally, numerical studies will be performed to investigate the mutual impact of droplet movement, interface deformation and (multicomponent) mass transfer behavior for different process conditions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants