Unravelling CO2 and Electrolyte effects in Bubbly Flows: Interplay between Rheology, Hydrodynamics and Mass Transfer

Bubbly flows are ubiquitously found in natural systems and are widely used in (bio)-chemical and energy-producing processes. A variety of design options, ease of maintenance, and a large operability window make bubble columns a commonplace across industries, ranging from oil processing to biotechnology and electrolyzers. Despite their wide...

A numerical study of the behaviour of carbon dioxide in control valves for optimising carbon sequestration

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that multiple solutions must be deployed simultaneously to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Carbon, Capture & Storage (CCS) is an unavoidable technique within this portfolio as an intermediate solution. CCS requires transport of CO₂ through...

Gas mass transfer in syngas fermentation broths is enhanced by ethanol

In gas fermentations (using O2, CO, H2, CH4 or CO2), gas-to-liquid mass transfer is often regarded as one of the limiting processes. However, it is widely known that components in fermentation broths (e.g., salts, biomass, proteins, antifoam, and organic products such as alcohols and acids) have tremendous impact on the volumetric mass transfer...

Alleviating mass transfer limitations in industrial external-loop syngas-to-ethanol fermentation

Mass transfer limitations in syngas fermentation processes are mostly attributed to poor solubility of CO and H₂ in water. Despite these assumed limitations, a syngas fermentation process has recently been commercialized. Using large-sale external-loop gas-lift reactors (EL-GLR), CO-rich off-gases are converted into ethanol, with...

An Alternative Micro LED Mass Transfer Technology: Self-Assembly

Micro LED display technology has been spotlighted as the most promising technology compared to LCD and OLED. Its excellent advantages include higher brightness, self-illumination, higher resolution, lower power consumption, faster response, higher integration, higher stability, thinner thickness, longer life, etc. In terms of the unique benefits...

Modeling the effect of dissolved gas on the bubble layer along a vertical gasevolving electrode

During water electrolysis for the production of hydrogen and oxygen, many bubbles are formed at the electrodes. The presence of these bubbles causes a number of side effects such as a significant increase in the total cell resistance (e.g., electrical circuit resistances, transport related resistances, and electrochemical reaction resistances)....

Modelling of submerged oscillating water columns with mass transfer for wave energy extraction

In the past decades, the global demand for energy has increased. The aim to reduces has let to an increase in the production of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy. However, there are more major energy resources available in the oceans, such as wave and tidal power. The estimated potential global energy resource in waves is...

Rate-Based Modelling of Plate-Packed Heat Integrated Distillation Columns

TechnipFMC is pushing innovations to reduce the emissions of ethylene plants separations. This development is also driven by customer demands. They face increasingly strict legislation on \ce{CO2} emissions. Separation in distillation columns is one of the major energy intensive unit operations in an ethylene plant, and increasing their...

Modelling of submerged oscillating water columns with mass transfer for wave energy extraction

Oscillating-water-column (OWC) devices are a very important type of wave energy converters which have been extensively studied over the years. Although most designs of OWC are based on floating or fixed structures exposed above the surface level, little is known from completely submerged systems which can benefit from reduced environmental...

Prediction of adsorption isotherms from breakthrough curves

A mathematical model is used to predict adsorption isotherms from experimentally measured breakthrough curves. Using this approach, by performing only breakthrough experiments for a mixture of two (or more) components, one can obtain pure component adsorption isotherms up to the pressure of the experiment. As a case study, the adsorption of...

Ammonia absorption in ionic liquids-based mixtures in plate heat exchangers studied by a semi-empirical heat and mass transfer framework

Unfavorable transport properties have always been pointed out as the key factors that hinder the application of ammonia/ionic liquids (NH ₃ /ILs) in absorption cycles, while heat and mass transfer of these new fluids in components have been rarely reported. In this study, a corrugated plate heat exchanger is selected as the...

Effect of type-III Anti-Freeze Proteins (AFPs) on CO₂ hydrate formation rate

CO2 hydrate slurry is a favourable direct coolant of fresh products due to its large latent heat and phase change temperature around 7 °C. Continuous production of this slurry is, however, difficult to realise due to the high rate of hydrate formation. The use of additives is proposed with the purpose of decreasing the formation rate so that the...

In-situ product removal by membrane extraction

In bioproduction processes of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, downstream processing usually is a significant cost factor. The products require a high purity (especially biopharmaceutical products), therefore, the process usually contains a large number of separation steps. Moreover, the high costs in downstream processing are caused by the fact...

Enhanced transport phenomena in CO2 sequestration and CO2 EOR

The results of this thesis give insight into the (mass)-transfer during flow of gases, especially CO2, in various gas-liquid systems. A number of experiments was performed to investigate the transport phenomena through interfaces with and without surfactant monolayers. The observed phenomena have been incorporated into physical models to predict...