Mass Transfer around a Sphere Buried in a Packed Bed

Abstract

The transport phenomenon of mass transfers between a moving fluid and a reacting sphere buried in a packed bed, with “uniform velocity”, was analysed numerically, for solute transport by both advection and diffusion to obtain the concentration field and, from it, the dimensionless concentration boundary layer thickness, , for , and . The bed of inert particles is taken to have uniform voidage. For this purpose, numerical solutions of the partial differential equations describing mass concentration of the solute were undertaken to obtain the concentration boundary layer thickness as a function of the relevant parameters. Finally, mathematical expressions that relate the dependence with the Peclet number and inert particle diameter are proposed to describe the approximate size of the concentration boundary layer thickness.