Compartment modeling for analyzing intra‐ and inter‐vortex mass transfer in ribbed Taylor‐Couette reactors

The double‐vortex structure is the most significant feature of Taylor‐Couette flow reactors (TCRs), and enhancing mixing within vortices has been a primary goal. In this study, tapered ribs were added to the surface of the rotor, and a compartment modeling approach was employed to investigate the effects of intra‐ and inter‐vortex mass transfer mechanisms on the mass transfer process in ribbed TCRs. A genetic algorithm was used to determine the parameters of the compartment model that best match the experimentally obtained residence time distributions (RTD) curves. The impact of operating parameters (axial Reynolds number and Taylor number) and structural parameters (rib spacing, height, and width) on the RTD was evaluated using computational fluid dynamics. Partial least squares regression was utilized to develop empirical correlations for six macro‐mixing performance indicators with accuracies exceeding 95%.