Interaction of a homogeneous chemical reaction and mass transfer in a single moving droplet

Abstract

Mass transfer with a superimposed homogeneous chemical reaction was investigated in the system cyclohexanol (continuous phase)/methyl chloroacetate (transferred component)/sodium hydroxide (dispersed phase). The unsteady mass transfer was measured applying a counter current flow cell for single droplets. The obtained experimental data were compared with CFD simulations, which already have been used successfully for a single drop system with a very fast homogeneous chemical reaction. In this paper the investigated system was selected to be in a regime where the rates of mass transfer and chemical reaction are in the same order of magnitude, so none of them can be considered rate-determining. Additionally, numerical simulations were carried out in order to quantify the results of the interactions between mass transfer and chemical reaction for the specific system. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.