Concentration gradient induced Rayleigh convection can influence effectively interracial mass transfer processes, but the convection phenomena are known as mesoscopic and complex. In order to investigate this phenomenon, a two-equation Lattice Boltzmann Method （LBM） is proposed to simulate the velocity and the concentra-tion distributions of Rayleigh convection generated in the CO2 absorptlon into ethanol liquid.The simulated results on velocity distributions are experimentally verified by PIV （particle image velocimetry technique） measurements. In order to simplify the analysis, the convection in the simulation as well as in the experiment, the Rayleigh convection was manipulated into a single down flow pattern, The simulated results show that the concentration contours agree qualitatively with the schlieren images in the literature. The experimental and simulated results show that theRayleigh convection under investigation is dominated by the flow in the downward direction and impels exchange of the liquid between the interfacial vicinity and the liquid bulk promoting the renewal of interfacial liquid, and hence enhances mass transfer. The comparison between the simulated and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed LBM is a promising alternative for simulating mass transfer induced Rayleigh convection.
By using a hybrid lattice-Boltzmann–finite-difference method(hybrid LBM–FDM method),three-dimensional simulations of solutal interfacial convection were conducted for the process of CO2absorption into ethanol.A self-renewal interface model is adopted as an interfacial perturbation model.The simulation results revealed some three-dimensional features of the induced interfacial convection,such as the development of diverging cellular flow and Rayleigh plume-like convection in liquid phase.The concentration distribution of the simulation result is validated and found to be in well agreement with the Schlieren visualization results qualitatively.Additionally,the mass transfer enhancements by interfacial convection were investigated via both simulation and experiment for the absorption process,and the mass transfer is shown to be enhanced by the interfacial convection by about two-fold comparing with that by diffusion.
The effect of different surfactants(n-octyltrimethylammonium bromide(OTABr),sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate(SDBS) and Tween 80) with different critical micelle concentrations(CMC) on the CO_2 absorption into aqueous solutions in a bubble column is analyzed in the present work.The presence of these surfactants increased the gas-liquid interfacial area,and decreased the liquid phase mass transfer coefficient,but with significant different extent.The results indicated that the CMC can be a key parameter affecting the mass transfer of CO_2 absorption into a dilute aqueous solution of a surfactant.Sardeing's model was used to fit the experimental data successfully by re-correlating the parameters.
We provided a short review on the recent progresses in computer simulations of adsorption and self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules.Owing to the extensive applications of amphiphilic molecules,it is very important to understand thoroughly the effects of the detailed chemistry,solid surfaces and the degree of confinement on the aggregate morphologies and kinetics of self-assembly for amphiphilic systems.In this review we paid special attention on(i) morphologies of adsorbed surfactants on solid surfaces,(ii) self-assembly in confined systems,and(iii) kinetic processes involving amphiphilic molecules.
CHEN XiaoMing1,DONG Wei2 & ZHANG XianRen1 1Key Laboratory for Nanomaterials,Ministry of Education
There are different types of membrane proteins in a cellular membrane,and most of them must correctly assemble into appropriate clusters for their cellular functions.In this work,we suggest a physical mechanism for selective aggregation of different membrane proteins without specific protein-protein attraction by dissipative particle dynamics method.A membrane-mediated interaction may result in different protein clusters with ideal mixing,nonideal mixing and demixing of different types of membrane proteins,depending on the extent of the similarity of membrane deformations by those proteins.
The velocity distribution in Rayleigh convection caused by acetone volatilization in acetone-ethyl acetate binary system was observed in a vertical cross section of an initially quiescent liquid layer by utilizing particle image velocimetry. Obvious turbulent vortexes that were induced by Rayleigh convection appeared in the bulk liquid,and its statistic features indicated that Rayleigh convection became more intense with the increase of Ra number and ReGnumber. Mass transfer coefficient was measured and the computed enhancement factor indicated that Rayleigh convection could promote the surface renewal of the liquid phase and intensify the interfacial mass transfer significantly. A method was proposed for the prediction of mass transfer coefficient based on the measured velocity vector, and the predicted mass transfer coefficients are in reasonable agreement with the experimental results.
