Numerical Simulation of the Cleaning Performance of a Venturi Scrubber

Abstract

Industrial applications need to use different systems for the problem of gas cleaning. A lot of processes have been developed, such as the use of a venturi for gas cleaning and pollution reduction. Additionally, several studies have been developed especially in terms of pressure drop because it is one of the main parameters to determine its efficiency. While the phenomenon of mass transfer in a venturi scrubber has not found much attention, in the present study, a mass transfer two-dimensional simulation is developed for gasification gas cleaning through a venturi scrubber with boundary conditions represented in air inlet velocities of 10, 15, and 20 m/s and water inlet mass flow of 0.02, 0.04 and 0.06 kg/s. In this work, Navier–Stokes equations are solved numerically and the mass transfer technique is treated by the volume of fluid (VOF) model, using CFD software. The obtained results were analyzed by presenting the mass fraction, velocity and pressure contours, and profiles. The probability density function (PDF) of mass transfer is studied too, showing how the removal efficiency of the venturi scrubber increases with a decrease in the liquid flow rate and an increase in the gas velocity. Therefore, the results show that the proposed venturi has the best mass transfer performance with a PDF that reaches 97.6 for velocity liquid of 20 m/s and the removal efficiency showed higher values at low liquid flow rates.