Investigation of Effective Interfacial Area in Micropacked Bed Reactors

The evaluation of gas–liquid mass transfer performance is vital for reactor design and process optimization of multiphase reactors. In this work, the chemisorption of CO2-NaOH solution is used to study the effective interfacial area in micropacked bed reactors (μPBRs) excluding the influence of the T-junction mixing head. The values of effective interfacial area in μPBRs can reach 1945–5464 m2/m3 (uL = 2.7–6.2 mm/s, uG = 44.9–67.9 cm/s) for microglass beads and 887–2670 m2/m3 (uL = 2–10.1 mm/s, uG = 33.7–56.1 cm/s) for foam packing, which is about 1 to 2 orders of magnitude larger than those of bubble reactors and trickle bed reactors. Additionally, the empirical correlations of effective interfacial area considering the effects of the diameter of glass beads and pore diameter of foam packing are proposed. This study provides a deep understanding of the mass transfer enhancement in μPBRs.