CFD Study of Countercurrent Flow in Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces with CO2BOL Solvent
Triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) are promising structures for heat exchangers and ultrafiltration due to their high heat and mass transfer efficiency compared to traditional devices. Because of this, the TPMS structures are a potential candidate for building the multifunctional, intensified devices in CO2 capture tasks. With the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) additive manufacturing (AM) capability, these complicated TPMS structures can be printed in the packed column for experimental tests. To optimize the TPMS structure and enable fast prototyping, a computationally-efficient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework was established to explore the TPMS structure’s hydrodynamics and mass transfer performance. The established model was able to simulate the countercurrent flows by integrating the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) CO2 binding organic liquids (CO2BOL) solvent into the TPMS structures. Three typical TPMS structures - namely, Gyroid, Schwarz-D, and Schwarz-P - were investigated using the periodic boundary set up in all three directions. Two different unit cell size (1 cm and 2 cm) geometries are tested for each type of TPMS. The solvent flow rate in this study covered a range of [0, 0.1] m/s with an initial liquid film thickness of [0.1, 1.8] mm. These simulations provided a preliminary understanding of the TPMS structure behaviors in countercurrent flow conditions. The study also related the TPMS geometry requirement to the given CO2BOL solvent physical property and covered reasonable packed column operation ranges.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1691506
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-29590
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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