(249d) Turbulence in a Microscale Planar Confined Impinging-Jets Reactor

Confined impinging-jets reactors (CIJR) offer many advantages for the chemical processing of rapid processes, such as recipitation and the production of organic nanoparticles. It has been demonstrated that the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a promising tool for "experiment-free" design and scale-up of such reactors. However, the validation of the CFD model for the microscale turbulence necessities experimental data the availability of which is so far very limited. In this work, the microesolution particle-image velocimetry (micro-PIV) techniques were employed to measure the velocity field for different Reynolds numbers in a planar CIJR. The performance of a CFD model, the two-layer k-å model, was evaluated by comparing the predicted flow field with the experimental data. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to directly measure the velocity and turbulence fields in a microreactor and to use the results to validate a CFD model for microscale turbulent flows.