Guang Li

By Weibin Shi, Jie Yang, Guang Li, Yuan Zong and Xiaogang Yang

Bubble shapes have been assumed to be spherical in the currently available breakup models such as the one developed by Luo and Svendsen (1996). This particular breakup model has been widely accepted and implemented into CFD modelling of gas-liquid two-phase flows. However, simulation results obtained based on this model usually yield unreliable predictions about the breakage of very small bubbles. The incorporation of bubble shape variation into breakup models has rarely been documented in the study but the bubble shape plays an important role when considering the interactions with the surrounding turbulent eddies in turbulent bubbly flows, especially when the effects of bubble deformation, distortion and bubble internal pressure change are considered during the events of eddy-bubble collision. Thus, the assumption of spherical bubbles seems to be no longer appropriate in reflecting this phenomenon. This study proposes and implements an improved bubble breakup model, which accounts for the variation of bubble shapes when solving the population balance equations for CFD simulation of gas-liquid two-phase flows in bubble columns.

Part of the book: Heat and Mass Transfer

By Lu Liu, Guang Li, Xiaogang Yang, Xiani Huang and Chenyang Xue

Three different kinds of morphology with various sizes of barium sulfate particles were produced by reactive precipitation in a Taylor-Couette flow reactor. It is found that particle morphology transition is strongly related to the hydrodynamics in the reactor, clearly indicating an interfacial interaction between feed solutions and aggregated particles. At low concentration, particle morphology transition is observed at the onset of turbulent Taylor-Couette flow. Such morphology transition also appears at the onset of turbulent Taylor vortex flow at high concentration. Based on different transition status, supersaturation is found to play an important role in nucleation and growth processes. In addition, it is revealed that the synthesized particle reduces its size as the consequence of the transition in particle morphology, indicating the effect of variation of the feeding rates. Experimental results have confirmed that controllable synthesis of barium sulfate particles with a particular morphology can be achieved through suitable selection of the controlling parameters such as the rotational speed of inner cylinder of Taylor-Couette flow reactor, reactant feeding rate and supersaturation ratio.

Part of the book: Wettability and Interfacial Phenomena

By Xiani Huang, Xiaogang Yang, Guang Li, Collins I. Ezeh, Chenggong Sun and Collins Snape

Hybrid Two-step synthesis method for preparation of MgAl LDHs materials for CO2 adsorption has been employed because of the features of fast micromixing and enhanced mass transfer by using a ‘T-mixer’ reactor. MgAl LDHs with different morphologies were successfully obtained by three different synthesis routes: ultrasonication-intensified in ‘T-mixer’ (TU-LDHs), conventional co-precipitation (CC-LDHs) and ultrasonic-intensified in ‘T-mixer’ pretreatment followed by conventional co-precipitation (TUC-LDHs). The synthesized samples characterized by the XRD showed that LDHs formed a typical layered double hydroxide structure and no other impurities were identified in the compound. The SEM and TEM analyses also confirmed that the size distribution of TUC-LDHs was relatively uniform (with an average size of approximate 100 nm) and layered structure was clearly visible. The BET characterization indicated that such LDHs had a large surface area (235 m2 g−1), which makes it a promising adsorbent material for CO2 capture in practical application. It can be found that the CO2 adsorption capacities of TU-LDHs, CC-LDHs and TUC-LDHs at 80°C were 0.30, 0.22 and 0.28 mmol g−1, respectively. The CO2 adsorption capacities of TU-LDHs, CC-LDHs and TUC-LDHs at 200°C were 0.33, 0.25 and 0.36 mmol g−1, respectively. The order of CO2 adsorption capacity to reach equilibrium at 80°C seen in Avrami model is: TU-LDHs > TUC-LDHs > CC-LDHs. The CO2 adsorption/desorption cycling test reveals that TU-LDHs and TUC-LDHs have good adsorption stability than CC-LDHs.

Part of the book: Sorption in 2020s