A rigorous theory of dispersion in both granular and sintered spatially-periodic porous media is presented, utilizing concepts originating from Brownian motion theory. A precise prescription is derived for calculating both the Darcy-scale interstitial velocity vector $\overline{v}^{\ast}$ and dispersivity dyadic $\overline{D}^{\ast}$ of a tracer particle. These are expressed in terms of the local fluid velocity vector field v at each point within the interstices of a unit cell of the spatially periodic array and, for the dispersivity, the molecular diffusivity D of the tracer particle through the fluid. Though the theory is complete, numerical results are not yet available owing to the complex structure of the local interstitial velocity field v. However, as an illustrative exercise, the theory is shown to correctly reduce in an appropriate limiting case to the well-known Taylor-Aris results for dispersion in circular capillaries.

Dispersion Resulting from Flow through Spatially Periodic Porous Media

The valorization of plastic solid waste (PSW) by primary to quaternary routes: From re-use to energy and chemicals

Respiration and denitrification in permeable continental shelf deposits on the South Atlantic Bight: Rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling from sediment column experiments

Breakthrough performance of high-capacity membrane adsorbers in protein chromatography

The performance of fluidized bed adsorption is strongly influenced by the hydrodynamics of the fluidization process. Especially axial mixing in the liquid and solid phase may lead to reduced capacity and resolution. In this article axial mixing in the liquid phase of a classified fluidized bed based on porous glass granules is presented. Axial mixing was analyzed by measurements of residence time distributions in a fluidized bed, showing a reduction of mixing at increased ratio of bed height to diameter as well as at increased linear velocity of the liquid stream. These results were transferred to two real adsorption systems on two different scales : In a bench scale (up to 15 mL of adsorbent) the purification of monoclonal antibodies from hybridoma supernatant was performed with a cation exchanger, in a larger scale (up to 750 mL of matrix) the adsorption of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on the same matrix was investigated. The results showed an increase of capacity at increased bed height-to-diameter ratio ; with regard to linear velocity a broad range of only slightly changed capacity was found. A shift from dispersion controlled to diffusion controlled adsorption at intermediate linear velocity was proposed by isolating the effect of pore diffusion from the effect of dispersion.

C.L. de Ligny

Papers

Coupling between diffusion and convection in radial dispersion of matter by fluid flow through packed beds