Theoretical Analysis of the Velocity Profiles in a Diacell® Cell Applying Computational Fluid Dynamics

• Published in: ECS transactions Vol. 47; no. 1; pp. 13 - 23
• Main Authors: Enciso, Rubí, Espinoza-Montero, Patricio J, Frontana-Uribe, Bernardo A., Delgadillo, Jose Angel, Rodríguez-Torres, Israel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Electrochemical Society, Inc 01.01.2013
• ISSN: 1938-5862; 1938-6737
• DOI: 10.1149/04701.0013ecst

The DiaCell® electrochemical reactor has been used in several processes such as disinfection without chorine addition, advanced oxidation processes and residual water treatment. The reactor design allows a modification of the configuration from 1 to 4 compartments, changing the effective reactor volume with separators of different sizes that are internal and parallel feed. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of a DiaCell® reactor is needed to describe the detailed flow field and the velocity profiles at each step of the compartments. The CFD analysis is an important tool to scale up the process in a swift and efficient way. The theoretical analysis presented in this paper shows changes in the velocity profiles and flow distribution as a function of the width of the selected separators and the residence time of the cell for four different geometry configurations. The reactor configuration with two separators of 0.3 cm present the most even flow distribution. Furthermore, the analysis shows that it is possible to evaluate for each of the four different geometries where the flow is even and the section of the flow close to the electrode that it is not uniform.