Sonochemical activity in ultrasonic reactors under heterogeneous conditions

Due to its physical and chemical effects, ultrasound is widely used for industrial purposes, especially in heterogeneous medium. Nevertheless, this heterogeneity can influence the ultrasonic activity. In this study, the effect of the addition of inert glass beads on the sonochemical activity inside an ultrasonic reactor is investigated by monitoring the formation rate of triiodide, and the ultrasonic power is measured by calorimetry and by acoustic radiation. It was found that the sonochemical activity strongly depends on the surface area of the glass beads in the medium: it decreases above a critical area value (around 10^-2 m²), partly due to wave scattering and attenuation. This result is confirmed for a large range of frequencies (from 20 to 1135 kHz) and glass beads diameters (from 8-12 µm to 6 mm). It was also demonstrated that above a given threshold of the surface area, only part of the supplied ultrasonic power is devoted to chemical effects of ultrasound. Finally, the acoustic radiation power appears to describe the influence of solids on sonochemical activity, contrary to the calorimetric power.

Intensification of heat and mass transfer by ultrasound: application to heat exchangers and membrane separation processes

This paper aims to illustrate the interest of ultrasound technology as an efficient technique for both heat and mass transfer intensification. It is demonstrated that the use of ultrasound results in an increase of heat exchanger performances and in a possible fouling monitoring in heat exchangers. Mass transfer intensification was observed in the case of cross-flow ultrafiltration. It is shown that the enhancement of the membrane separation process strongly depends on the physico-chemical properties of the filtered suspensions.

A new way to apply ultrasound in cross-flow ultrafiltration: application to colloidal suspensions

A new coupling of ultrasound device with membrane process has been developed in order to enhance cross-flow ultrafiltration of colloidal suspensions usually involved in several industrial applications included bio and agro industries, water and sludge treatment. In order to reduce mass transfer resistances induced by fouling and concentration polarization, which both are main limitations in membrane separation process continuous ultrasound is applied with the help of a vibrating blade (20 kHz) located in the feed channel all over the membrane surface (8mm between membrane surface and the blade). Hydrodynamic aspects were also taking into account by the control of the rectangular geometry of the feed channel. Three colloidal suspensions with different kinds of colloidal interaction (attractive, repulsive) were chosen to evaluate the effect of their physico-chemical properties on the filtration. For a 90 W power (20.5 W cm(-2)) and a continuous flow rate, permeation fluxes are increased for each studied colloidal suspension, without damaging the membrane. The results show that the flux increase depends on the initial structural properties of filtered dispersion in terms of colloidal interaction and spatial organizations. For instance, a Montmorillonite Wyoming-Na clay suspension was filtered at 1.5 × 10(5)Pa transmembrane pressure. Its permeation flux is increased by a factor 7.1, from 13.6 L m(-2)h(-1) without ultrasound to 97 L m(-2)h(-1) with ultrasound.

Importance of surface diffusivities in pesticide adsorption kinetics onto granular versus powdered activated carbon: experimental determination and modeling

Three pesticides (atrazine, bromoxynil and diuron) and two granular activated carbons are involved in equilibrium and kinetic adsorption experiments. Equilibrium is represented by Freundlich isotherm law and kinetic is described by the Homogeneous Surface Diffusion Model, based on external mass transfer and intraparticle surface diffusion. Equilibrium and long-term experiments are conducted to compare Powdered Activated Carbon and Granular Activated Carbon. These first investigations show that crushing GAC into PAC improves the accessibility of the adsorption sites without increasing the number of these sites. In a second part, kinetics experiments are carried out using a Differential Column Batch Reactor. Thanks to this experimental device, the external mass transfer coefficient k(f) is calculated from empirical correlation and the effect of external mass transfer on adsorption is likely to be minimized. In order to obtain the intraparticle surface diffusion coefficient D. for these pesticides, comparisons between experimental kinetic data and simulations are conducted and the best agreement leads to the Ds coefficient. This procedure appears to be an efficient way to acquire surface diffusion coefficients for the adsorption of pesticides onto GAC. Finally it points out the role of surface diffusivity in the adsorption rate. As a matter of fact, even if the amount of the target-compound that could be potentially adsorbed is really important, its surface diffusion coefficient may be small, so that its adsorption may not have enough contact time to be totally achieved.