Thermodiffusion effect for a non-associating mixture in a multi layered system of porous media and fluid layers heated from above

• Published in: Canadian journal of chemical engineering 2013-10, Vol.91 (10), p.1702-1710
• Main Authors: Jawad, H., Bataller, H., Saghir, M.Z.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: binary liquids; Binary mixtures; Chemical engineering; Computational fluid dynamics; Engineering Sciences; Holes; Isopropanol; Liquids; Materials; Mechanics; Mechanics of materials; Migration; multi-layered; Physics; porous media; Soret coefficient; soret effect; thermodiffusion
• ISSN: 0008-4034; 1939-019X
• DOI: 10.1002/cjce.21809

A numerical simulation has been conducted to investigate the thermodiffusion phenomenon in a porous layer sandwiched between two liquid layers that are wetted with water alcohol mixtures at different water concentrations. Two different binary mixtures with different Soret coefficients have been used in the entire system, one with a negative Soret coefficient and the other one with a positive sign. The results show that the direction of the component migration in a porous layer depends on the sign of the Soret coefficient. For a binary mixture with a negative Soret coefficient, such as 10% isopropanol and 90% water, the heavier species move in the direction of the hot surface, while for a mixture with a positive Soret effect, such as 50% isopropanol and 50% water, the heavier species migrate toward the colder surface. To reduce the gravity effect, the cavity was heated from the top with different temperatures ranging from 5 to 20 K.