(276b) Segregation of Particles in Aluminum-Water Reactors Using Gas-Fluidization and Vibration

This study investigates the phenomenon of particle segregation in aluminum water reactors, with a focus on the segregation of aluminum and aluminum hydroxide particles. Aluminum water reactors involve the reaction of aluminum with water to produce hydrogen gas and aluminum hydroxide. At the moment, aluminum-water reactors are a potential way to power underwater vehicles, but they are unable to do it reliably or effectively. These problems occur because aluminum particles and aluminum hydroxide are immobile and water cannot consistently reach unreacted aluminum. Although it has been demonstrated that subjecting particles to vibration and gas flow causes them to separate vertically, little emphasis has been given to the fact that vibration and gas flow produce separation in the opposite directions. In order to controllably separate unreacted particles from reaction products and cause motion in the granular aluminum particles, we use computational modeling to investigate the effects of vibration and/or gas-fluidization on segregation of aluminum and aluminum hydroxide particles. Both computational fluid dynamics - discrete element method (CFD-DEM) and multi-fluid modeling (MFM) techniques are used for simulations. Further, the effect of introducing cohesive forces to account for the effects of liquid bridging and small particle size on segregation dynamics is studied.