“Effect of Schmidt number and D/d ratio on mass transfer through gas-

solid and liquid-solid packed beds: Direct numerical simulations.”

Critical Review Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for the

Award of

Degree of

“MASTERS IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING”

(2020-22)

By

Virendra Kumar

(20CHE232)

(FIRST YEAR)

Under the guidance of

“Prof. Ashwin Patwardhan”

Institute of Chemical Technology

Matunga, Mumbai- 400019

Contents
1. TITLE OF PAPER ...................................................................................................................... 5
2. AUTHORS .................................................................................................................................. 5
3. JOURNAL NAME...................................................................................................................... 5
Powder Technology, 354, 529-539. ................................................................................................ 5
4. DOI: ............................................................................................................................................ 5
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2019.05.067 ................................................................................ 5
5. IMPACT FACTOR:.................................................................................................................... 5
6. INTRODUCTION: ..................................................................................................................... 6
7. SUMMARY: ............................................................................................................................... 6
8. CRITICAL REVIEW ANALYSIS: ............................................................................................ 7
8.1 Title and Abstracts: ............................................................................................................... 7
8.2 Technical Correctness: .......................................................................................................... 7
8.3 Clarity:................................................................................................................................... 7
8.4 Discussion Flow: ................................................................................................................... 7
8.5 Illustrations and Figures: ....................................................................................................... 8
8.6 References: ............................................................................................................................ 8
9. References: .................................................................................................................................. 8

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Abbreviations

PBC : Packed Bed Reactor

FBC : Fixed Bed Column

CFD : Computational Fluid Dynamics

DNS : Direct Numerical Simulation

DEM-CFD : Discrete Element Method- Computational Fluid Dynamics

FVM : Finite Volume Method

Notations:
𝐶𝐴,𝑖𝑛 : Inlet concentration of species A (kg/m3)

𝐶𝐴,𝑜𝑢𝑡 : Outlet concentration of species A (kg/m3)

𝐶𝐴,𝑠 : Surface concentration of species A (kg/m3)

𝐶𝐴,𝑓 : Bulk concentration of species A (kg/m3)

D : Column diameter (m)

𝐷𝐴,𝑓 : Diffusivity of species A (m2/s)

d : Particle diameter (m)

F : Volumetric flow rate (m3/s)

g : Function of radial distance r

𝑘𝑙 : Overall mass transfer coefficient (m/s)

𝑘𝑜 : Overall mass transfer coefficient (m/s)

L : Total column height (m)

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P : Pressure (N/m2)

𝑅𝑝 : Particle radius (m)

Re : Reynolds number (dimensionless)

r : Radial distance (m)

S : Surface area (m2)

Sc : Schmidt number (dimensionless)

𝑆ℎ𝑜 : Overall Sherwood number (dimensionless)

V : Volume (m3)

v : Superficial velocity (m/s)

X : Height of the active part of column (m)

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1. TITLE OF PAPER
“Effect of Schmidt number and D/d ratio on mass transfer through gas-solid and liquid-solid
packed beds: Direct numerical simulations.”

2. AUTHORS

Shivkumar Bale (a, ⁎), Shashank S. Tiwari (b), Krishnaswamy Nandakumar (c),
Jyeshtharaj B. Joshi (b, d)
a) Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, PA,
USA

b) Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology, Matunga, Mumbai

400 019, India

c) Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

d) Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai 400 094, India

*Corresponding author

Email address: ssb41@pitt.edu (S. Bale).

3. JOURNAL NAME

Powder Technology, 354, 529-539.

4. DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2019.05.067

5. IMPACT FACTOR:
3.76

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6. INTRODUCTION:
Accurate prediction of Sherwood number in packed beds is essential for optimal design
and functioning of packed beds. Time and efforts consuming experimental investigations and
based on those derived empirical correlations have certain limitations and data gap in low D/d
columns. CFD can address these limitations and assumptions by developing optimum, better and
reliable design procedures. Authors for that purpose have deeply investigated effect of Schmidt
number and D/d ratio on mass transfer using DNS as approach of solving the N-S equations.
Presence of wall/boundary effects leads to the conclusion that till a certain value of D/d wall
effect is present and absent for value greater than that value.

7. SUMMARY:

Shivkumar Bale, Shashank S. Tiwari, Krishnaswamy Nandakumar, Jyeshtharaj B. Joshi

have tried to simulate effect of Schmidt number and D/d ratio on mass transfer in packed
beds. DEM-CFD is used to create random geometry of packed beds and used DNS for
resolving entire range of turbulence. For two cases D/d=6 and D/d=11 they studied effect
of Sc=1,10,100 and 1000, keeping the void fraction constant, on Sherwood number. Two
main observation that 𝑆ℎ𝑜 increases with Re, and the slope of the relationship between
𝑆ℎ𝑜 and Re increases with increasing Sc. Another interesting trend that at Sc = 1, the 𝑆ℎ𝑜
vs Re trend for D/d = 6 was below the one for D/d = 11. However, as Sc further
increases, the trend for D/d = 6 moves above the one for D/d = 11. Such trends are
observed due to wall/boundary effects. The study done in this paper gives a striking
boundary in terms of D/d when the effects of boundary effects should be taken into
account while designing a packed bed.

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8. CRITICAL REVIEW ANALYSIS:

8.1 Title and Abstracts:

“Effect of Schmidt number and D/d ratio on mass transfer through gas-solid and liquid-solid
packed beds: Direct numerical simulations.” is a suitable title since it explains the overall idea of
the paper. In addition, with that the abstract presented by the authors highlighted the key words
and presented the overall summary of the paper very well.

8.2 Technical Correctness:

The paper seems to be technically correct; as simulation data from DNS and
experimental data have been verified. However cross-over of graph of Sherwood number for
D/d=6 and D/d=11 vs Reynold number as Schmidt number increases has not been explained
with greater details. All the data presented seem to be technically correct and presented
nicely.

8.3 Clarity:
From the critical review point of view we can say that the authors had given the clarity in all
sections like,
i. Introduction: In this, authors first gave the information about how CFD is better for
packed beds and various literatures which have worked in the same domain.
ii. Main body: In the main body, they have presented sequentially everything from
creating geometry, creating mesh and doing sensitivity analysis, presented all the
results, their validations with experiments and their explanations very nicely. However,
a detailed analysis of some of the results would have made the whole paper more
comprehensive and understandable.
iii. Final remarks: They have clearly presented all the results in every possible
format/method very nicely.

8.4 Discussion Flow:

The way by which the authors had reported are in flow as first they presented
literature work done in the domain. Further they presented sequentially creation of random

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geometry, mesh sensitivity analysis, solution methodology and boundary conditions nicely.
In the end they have presented results in form of Sherwood number comparisons,
concentration variations, distribution of the Sherwood number with help of graphs very
nicely.

8.5 Illustrations and Figures:

The data presented in the paper are snapshots of CFD profiles and various graphs are
easy to comprehend and visualize.

8.6 References:
The authors listed 48 reference and they had cited all the references whichever they
mentioned.

9. References:
1. Bale, S., Sathe, M., Ayeni, O., Berrouk, A.S., Joshi, J., Nandakumar, K., 2017.
Spatially resolved mass transfer coefficient for moderate Reynolds number flows in
packed beds: Wall effects. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 110, 406–415.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.03.052
2. Bale, S., Tiwari, S., Sathe, M., Berrouk, A.S., Nandakumar, K., Joshi, J., 2018. Direct
numerical simulation study of end effects and D/d ratio on mass transfer in packed
beds. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 127, 234–244.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.07.100.

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