Study of the Flow Dynamics of Nitrogen and Hydrogen Gases in a Monolithic Microchannel

A technological breakthrough allowed the production of Ammonia to be synthesize in ambient conditions. This method is called Magnetic Induction Method (MIM) where induced magnetic fields polarizes the hydrogen and nitrogen gases to the wires covered with catalysts to allow the synthesis of ammonia. This synthesis method however is done in microfluidic environments where micro mixing may not be favorable due to micro dimensions. In order to enhance the yield of Ammonia via this method, a better design of microreactor needs to be developed. Micromixing efficiency needs to be enhanced to improve the rate of reaction. Hence, this research is conducted to develop a microreactor that utilizes the wires arrangement in the microreactor to create chaotic advection that will induce greater mixing efficiency. These wires will be placed in the monolithic Microchannel acting as longitudinal vortex generators (LVG) that creates chaotic advection to the flow of the gases. This fluidic chaotic advection will then cause the mixing of gases to be increased. This theory was proven at the end of this project where three designs that incorporated wires as LVGs successfully created disruption in gases’ velocities and change in Reynolds number as the fluid progresses through the whole channel. It was then deemed that Geometry Design 2 and 3 are more suitable for micromixing as the velocity variation are equally distributed along the channel. The development and design of the microreactor is done via a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach using the software ANSYS coupled with CFX module.