Experimental Investigation of Fluid Flow through Zinc Open-Cell Foams Produced by the Excess Salt Replication Process and Suitable as a Catalyst in Wastewater Treatment

• Published in: Water (Basel) Vol. 15; no. 7; p. 1405
• Main Authors: Hassein-Bey, Amel Hind, Belhadj, Abd-Elmouneïm, Tahraoui, Hichem, Toumi, Selma, Sid, Asma Nour El Houda, Kebir, Mohammed, Chebli, Derradji, Amrane, Abdeltif, Zhang, Jie, Mouni, Lotfi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.04.2023
• Subjects: Air flow; Alloys; Catalysts; Chemical Sciences; Energy loss; Fabrication; Fluid flow; Foamed metals; Foams; Force and energy; full cubic law; Heat conductivity; inertia coefficient; Kinetic energy; Lead base alloys; Manufacturing; Metal foams; Morphology; Open cell porosity; Packed beds; Permeability; Porosity; Porous materials; Porous media; Powder metallurgy; pressure drop; Production processes; Purification; Replication; Reynolds number; salt replication process; Salts; Sewage; Velocity; Viscosity; Wastewater treatment; Water treatment; Zinc; zinc open-cell foam; Algeria; Germany; salt replication process; full cubic law; zinc open-cell foam; porosity; permeability; inertia coefficient; pressure drop
• DOI: 10.3390/w15071405
• ISSN: 2073-4441

The “excess salt replication process” is a new simple method of fabrication of open-cell metal foam based on the commonly known salt replication method. Porous materials with porosity between 46% and 66% result when the employed alloy is 25% antimonial lead alloy and when it is 58% to 65% zamak 5. These foams are proposed as structured catalysts instead of packed beds in the treatment of wastewater. The local regimes influencing macroscopic air flow behaviour through these foams are delimited and boundaries are analysed in terms of sample length. Most of the experimental tests in this work exhibited a general trend of air flow in ESR foams dominated by the “strong inertia regime”. It was established that the law governing the unidirectional air flow through these foams was the full cubic law. The permeability and inertia coefficient of five samples with a cell diameter between 2.5 and 4.5 mm were calculated, and an empirical correlation was fitted. The irregular cuboid shape of salt grains used in the ESR foam was the origin of the special cell form of ESR foams leading to an anisotropic ordered porous media. This can explain the macroscopic turbulence of air flow because there were many dead zones present in the corner of each cubic cell, thus causing kinetic energy loss starting at earlier regimes.