Numerical investigation on Taylor bubble mass transfer in microchannel based on CO2 gas with the consideration of gas compressibility

Abstract

This paper focused on the mass transfer of Taylor bubbles composed of pure carbon dioxide in organic solvent in microchannels. Combined with the Henry’s law, the carbon dioxide concentration at the two-phase interface was dynamically updated by using a compressible fluid model and considering the variation of gas density in the bubble. The critical bubble shape factor could help to judge the dominant mechanism of bubble deformation. The entire mass transfer process was divided into three stages: the rapid dissolution stage, the two-end dissolution stage, and the diffusion-like dissolution stage. The gas–liquid mass transfer capacity and influencing factors of each stage were analyzed, and the dominant mass transfer mechanism of each stage was summarized. It was found that the non-uniform degree of gas density in the bubble was related to the bubble Reynolds number and bubble volume by analyzing the distribution variation of solute density.