Computational Analysis of an Instantaneous Chemical Reaction in a T-Microreactor

We extend and apply a method for the numerical computation of convective and diffusive mixing in liquid systems with very fast irreversible chemical reaction to the case of unequal diffusivities. This approach circumvents the solution of stiff differential equations and, hence, facilitates the direct numerical simulation of reactive flows with quasi-instantaneous reactions. The method is validated by means of a neutralization reaction which is studied in a T-shaped micromixer and compared with existing experimental LIP-data. Because of their large are-to-volume ratio, microreactors are well suited for fast chemical reactions which are seriously affected by the slow diffusive transport in aqueous media. Numerical computations for different reactor dimensions reveal the fact that, in a dimensionless setting, the obtained conversion is independent of the reactor size, if the flow conditions are the same. This corresponds to an increase of space-time-yield proportional to the square of the inverse scale factor. (C) 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 56: 1406-1415, 2010