The mixing performance of three passive milli-scale reactors with different geometries was investigated
at different Reynolds numbers. The effects of design and operating characteristics such as mixing channel
shape and volume
fl
ow rate were investigated. The main objective of this work was to demonstrate a
process design method that uses on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for modeling and Additive
Manufacturing (AM) technology for manufacture. The reactors were designed and simulated using So-
lidWorks and Fluent 15.0 software, respectively. Manufacturing of the devices was performed with an
EOS M-series AM system. Step response experiments with distilled Millipore water and sodium hydro-
xide solution provided time-dependent concentration pro
fi
les. Villermaux
–
Dushman reaction experi-
ments were also conducted for additional veri
fi
cation of CFD results and for mixing ef
fi
ciency evaluation
of the different geometries. Time-dependent concentration data and reaction evaluation showed that the
performance of the AM-manufactured reactors matched the CFD results reasonably well. The proposed
design method allows the implementation of new and innovative solutions, especially in the process
design phase, for industrial scale reactor technologies. In addition, rapid implementation is another
advantage due to the virtual
fl
ow design and due to the fast manufacturing which uses the same geo-
metric
fi
le formats.
&
2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
)