Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45

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Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Mass-transfer entrance effects in narrow rectangular channels with ribbed

walls or mesh-type spacers
Carina Rodrigues a, Vı́tor Geraldes a,n, Maria Norberta de Pinho a, Viriato Semia~ o b
a
ICEMS, Chemical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
b
IDMEC, Mechanical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Entrance effects on the Sherwood number are investigated in a narrow rectangular channel, both with
Received 22 December 2011 ribbed walls and filled with different mesh-type spacers, and for Reynolds numbers, based on the
Received in revised form channel height, varying between 5 and 500. Mass transfer coefficients were measured by the limiting
17 April 2012
current technique, using the ferri–ferro cyanide redox couple with 0.5 M potassium carbonate in a test
Accepted 18 April 2012
cell with a narrow rectangular channel (15 mm  2 mm  170 mm) and 8 consecutive segmented nickel
Available online 28 April 2012
electrodes (11.2 mm long and 10 mm wide) fitted in the bottom wall. Five mesh-type spacers made of
Keywords: two layers of parallel filaments (1 mm diameter) and having different flow attack angles were tested.
Mesh-type spacers The ribbed walls tested had transverse square ribs (1 mm  1 mm) uniformly spaced, with inter-ribs
Mass transfer
distances of 3.8, 7.6 and 11.35 mm. Average Sherwood number for each electrode was measured for
Entrance effects
both cases of the upstream electrodes being active (under limiting current conditions) or inactive
Membranes
Electrochemistry (without current). Results show that for stable laminar flow regime strong entrance effects can prevail
Spiral–wound modules over the entire channel whenever transverse or oblique filaments are not in contact with the electrodes.
Diamond-shape spacers presented no mass-transfer entrance effects even at a lowest Reynolds number
of 5. In the transitional flow regime, i.e., at Re above the critical value, the Sherwood number decreases
sharply in the first periodic channel segments with posterior stabilization for all the spacer configura-
tions tested. This work gives guidelines for using periodic boundary conditions in the CFD simulation of
flow and mass-transfer inside spacer-filled narrow rectangular channels with relevance for membrane
modules design.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Design improvements to obtain more efficient spiral-wound
modules for different membrane separation processes, such as
reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration or even membrane-based blood
oxygenators, requires detailed knowledge of flow structures and
solute concentration distribution inside feed channels. Computa-
tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been an important tool to acquire
this information for membrane modules with different feed
spacer types (Geraldes et al., 2004; Li et al., 2004; Schwinge
et al., 2004; Fimbres-Weihs and Wiley, 2010). To reduce the CFD
computational cost to acceptable levels, the computational
domain is usually confined to a single periodic cell of the channel
with feed spacers, assuming that downstream a few periodic cells
the flow and concentration distribution becomes periodic and
fully developed, i.e. invariant in the main flow direction. However,
n numbers up to 150), velocity profile becomes developed after
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ351 218417511.
E-mail address: vitor.geraldes@ist.utl.pt (V. Geraldes).
the conditions that make such hypothesis appropriate are not yet
clearly established.
The periodic flow hypothesis has been widely used to predict
the velocity distribution in channels with ribbed walls or spacer-
filled channels, and experimental evidence confirms that such
hypothesis is reasonable after a few periodic cells (Chung and
Tucker, 2004; Li and Tung, 2008a; Almeida et al., 2010). Accord-
ing to Chung and Tucker, 2004, the flow in a ribbed wall
rectangular channel becomes periodic in the first 5 channel
segments for a Reynolds number as high as 1000 (the Reynolds
definition used herein is displayed on the list of symbols). For
mesh-type spacer-filled narrow rectangular channels, which
have a higher number of periodic unit cells, it was also found
that the flow is periodic over a wide fraction of the entire
channel length for Reynolds numbers up to 500 (Li and Tung,
2008a). In narrow rectangular channels filled with transverse
cylindrical filaments attached to one wall, visualization experi-
ments have proved that for steady laminar flow (Reynolds
the second periodic cell (Almeida et al. 2010).

0009-2509/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2012.04.023
 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45 39

In opposition to hydrodynamics, for the case of mass-transfer, (Li et al., 2004; Koutsou et al., 2009) and optimal operating
literature does not clearly establish the conditions required to conditions to reduce experimental error were reviewed recently
have a developed Sherwood number (Sh), i.e. independent of the by Szánto et al. (2008) and Taama et al. (1996). The basic details
coordinate in the main flow direction. For solute transport in of limiting current technique can be found in the previous papers.
liquids, in particular, the Schmidt number is always very high The tests were performed in a test cell with a flat narrow
and, therefore, the concentration boundary layer average thick- rectangular channel, which is used as a physical model of the
ness can be very small. Unless flow instabilities or the flow spiral-wound module feed channels. The natural curvature of
structure induced by the spacer quickly prevents the growth of these channels was not taken into account in the physical model
the concentration boundary layer, the Sherwood number may because previous studies have shown that a slight increase of the
decrease within a substantial length of the channel. In the worst channel curvature does not change significantly the main flow
case scenario, the Sherwood number only stabilizes when the structure (Li and Tung, 2008b; Li et al., 2009).
concentration boundary layer reaches the center of the channel.
Such behavior may invalidate the hypothesis of a periodic con- 2.1. Materials
centration distribution that has been assumed frequently in CFD
predictions of mass-transfer in membrane modules. The test solution used was prepared with deionized water
In spiral-wound modules, two flow regimes are of special (average conductivityo0.5 mS), potassium carbonate (p.a. ACS
interest in industrial applications: the creeping flow regime and ISO 99%, Merck, Germany), potassium hexacyano-ferrate(II) tri-
the transitional flow regime. The transitional flow regime prevails hydrate (98.5–102.0%, p.a. ACS ISO, Sigma-Aldrich, Germany) and
in pressure-driven membrane processes, where the Reynolds potassium ferricyanide(III) ( 499%, p.a. ACS ISO, Sigma-Aldrich,
number is usually above the transition value and never exceeds Germany). The electrolyte solution used consisted in 0.005 M
1000 in practical applications (Schock and Miquel, 1987). CFD potassium ferricyanide, 0.01 M potassium ferrocyanide and 0.5 M
computations of the flow structure in a channel with spacers potassium carbonate as supporting electrolyte. Potassium carbo-
made of transverse filaments show that above the critical Rey- nate was used as a supporting electrolyte because Szánto et al.,
nolds number (Rec) the flow becomes unstable with vortex 2008, found that stable limiting current plateaus are obtained
shedding behind the filaments (Schwinge et al. 2003; Alexiadis with pure nickel electrodes. Working electrodes used in the test
et al. 2007). Another study using direct numerical simulation of cell were made of nickel ( 499.99%, Goodfellow, England) and its
the flow inside channels with non-woven diamond-shape spacers active surface was polished with Diamond paste (Meta dI II,
reveals that the transition Reynolds number is in the range of 70– Buhler, Lake Bluf, USA) down to 1 mm. Electrodes were glued to
90 (Koutsou et al., 2007). In the transitional regime, a periodic the supporting part of the test cell with Poly Max glue from UHU
disruption of the concentration boundary layer may occur, and Gmbh & Co, Buhl, Germany.
the average Sherwood number is expected to become constant
after a given entrance length. This entrance length must be
2.2. Test cell and experimental setup
quantified to better assess how significant are the entrance effects
in membrane modules. In turn, creeping flow is dominant, for
The test cell had two detachable parts as depicted in Fig. 1. The
instance, in spiral-wound membrane blood oxygenators. In these
top part of the cell was made of Plexiglass and has 8 nickel
modules, the channels height can be on the order of hundreds of
electrodes. Each electrode is connected to an independent electric
microns (Usher et al., 2006) and the flow velocity must be small
wire. The electrodes, which are glued in a cavity on the acrylic
enough to keep shear stresses below threshold value for blood
damage. Under these conditions, the Reynolds number is typically
below 10 with the flow dominated by viscous effects. Therefore,
in this particular case significant entrance effects are expected,
which must be taken into account in the module design.
To the best of our knowledge, mass transfer entrance effects
for creping flow in spacer filled channels were never investigated.
For the transitional flow regime, results in the literature refer only
to mesh-type spacers with transverse cylindrical filaments, either
in contact with the electrodes or in contact with the opposite
wall, for a single Reynolds number of 200 and for inter-filament
distance to channel height ratios of 2.2 and 4.0 (Li et al., 2004). In
these conditions, the mass-transfer coefficient becomes invariant
after about three to five repeated flow cells. However, there is no
evidence that this behavior can be extended to other spacer
geometries in transitional flow regime.
The present work examines and quantifies the entrance effects
on the Sh number for narrow rectangular channels (2 mm
height  15 mm width) filled with different mesh-type spacers
or with ribbed walls, for a wide range of Reynolds number varying
between 5 and 500, by use of the limiting current technique.

2. Materials and methods

Mass-transfer coefficients were measured by the limiting current

technique (Lin et al., 1951; Reiss and Hanratty, 1962; Szánto et al., Fig. 1. Photographs of the two parts of the test cell. (a) Top and (b) lateral view of
2008; Selman and Tobias, 1978). This technique has been used for the upper part with nickel electrodes; (c) top view of the bottom part with a
mass-transfer coefficients determination in spacer-filled channels ribbed wall.
40 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45
surface, act as cathodes, and are 11.2 mm long, 10 mm wide and
3 mm thick. The lateral walls of the nickel electrodes were coated
with a transparent varnish thin layer to ensure electric isolation
between electrodes. Furthermore, each electrode was comple-
mentary isolated from the adjacent ones by 0.1 mm layer of glue.
The bottom part of the cell, which acts as anode, is made of
stainless steel 316 and has a depression of 170 mm length and
15 mm width. In this depression different bars can be fitted in
order to obtain either a hydrodynamically smooth wall or
different ribbed walls. A hydrodynamic smooth surface bar is
used to create an open rectangular channel with a height, h, of
2 mm, where the different mesh-type spacers are placed. Three
other bars have transverse square ribs (1 mm  1 mm) uniformly
spaced, with inter-ribs distances, l, (measured from the center of a
rib to the center of the next one) of 3.8, 7.6 and 11.35 mm. This
corresponds to dimensionless inter-ribs distances, l/h, of 1.9,
3.8 and 5.7. The first rib in all bars is placed at 58 mm from the
channel inlet to allow for the laminar flow to fully develop,
ensuring a parabolic and undisturbed velocity profile right
upstream the first rib for every Re investigated (Geraldes et al.
1998). In the top wall, the electrodes are placed at the same
distance of the channel entrance as the first rib (58 mm), so that
the first electrode is aligned with the first rib center of each
spacer.
Mesh-type spacers used are sketched and characterized in
Table 1. These spacers have two layers of 1 mm diameter cylind-
rical filaments and are 16.8 cm long, 15 mm wide and 2 mm thick.
The working solution is placed in a vessel (volume of ca. 2 L)
made of stainless steel 316. This vessel has a jacket connected to a
thermostated bath in order to maintain the solution temperature
at 25 1C70.1 1C. Fluid solution is pumped to the test cell by a
small centrifugal pump (Iwaki magnet pump, model MD-10,
Iwaki Co, Ltd, Tokyo, Japan), which ensures a pulsation-free flow.
A stainless steel needle valve is placed between the pump and the
reservoir to regulate the flow rate. This valve is calibrated before
Table 1
Geometry and dimensions of the mesh-type spacers tested.
Spacer name Detailed view
D Flow direction
Diamond-shape spacer with two layers of filaments
SE
Transverse filaments in contact with electrodes
SW
Transverse filaments not in contact with electrode
LE
Oblique filaments in contact with electrodes
LW
Oblique filaments not in contact with electrodes
l1
the limiting current experiments through the flow rate measure-
ments, using a calibrated cylinder and a chronometer.
Potential-current curves were obtained for each nickel electrode
by using a potentiostat (Zanher PP201, Kronach, Germany), which is
connected and controlled by a computer through a specific software
(Power potentiostat PP201, Zehner Elecktrik). An auxiliary stabilized
power supply (Metrix Ax 501 Paris, France) is used to impose an
independent limiting current on upstream electrodes. All pipe
connections between the different components of the setup are
made of opaque polymeric material to avoid direct sun light contact.
2.3. Procedure
To control test solution durability and its degradation during
all the measurements, fluid sample absorbance at 420 nm was
measured before and after each test in a UV–visible spectro-
photometer (UV 1700 Pharma Spec, Shimadzu). A new testing
solution was made every two days to guarantee an absorbance
reduction lower than 5% (Szánto et al., 2008). Preliminary limiting
current tests revealed that the limiting current is constant,
independent of the anode choice, the cell metallic part or the
stainless steel tank. All the experiments were performed with the
anode being the cell metallic part since the measurements are
easier to perform. With this configuration, ferricyanide regenera-
tion occurs in the stainless steel test cell walls and the mixing-cup
concentration of ferricyanide is thus kept constant in the whole
channel. It should be noticed that for the most adverse case tested
ferricyanide consumption rate in all the electrodes was less than
5% of the corresponding inlet mass flow rate.
In the limiting current technique, it is usual practice to remove
oxygen dissolved in the ferro/ferricyanide solution by sparging
with nitrogen during several minutes. While this procedure
increases the desired current plateau width in the electrode
polarization curve, it also increases the chance of having undesired
nitrogen bubbles in the narrow rectangular channel, especially
Characteristics
Flow attack angle: a ¼ 451
Angle between filaments: b ¼ 901
Distance between filaments: l ¼4 mm
Flow attack angle: a ¼ 01
Angle between filaments: b ¼ 901
Distance between filaments: l ¼4 mm
l
Flow attack angle: a ¼ 451
Angle between filaments: b ¼ 451
Distance between filaments: l1 ¼ 4 mm, l2 ¼ 2.9 mm
l2
 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45
2.5
Open Channel
2 st
1 electrode
Re = 200
without
1.5
Current (mA)
nitrogen sparging
plateau
1
with
nitrogen sparging
0.5
0 electrode is nearly constant along the channel for Reynolds up to
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5
Voltage (V)
Fig. 2. Effect of nitrogen sparging on the voltage–current polarization curve.
when using the bottom ribbed wall, as it may trap those bubbles.
Because of that, the presence of nitrogen bubbles inside the narrow
rectangular channel must be avoided since they can distort the
velocity distribution and alter the mass-transfer coefficient.
It was found in the experiments that no noticeable difference
is observed in the limiting current value when polarization curves
were obtained without nitrogen sparging – see Fig. 2. For this
reason, all further experiments were conducted without nitrogen
sparging.
With the ribbed wall at the channel bottom, limiting current
was measured for each electrode and for Reynolds numbers in the
range 5–500. These measurements were made for two different
electric conditions on the upstream electrodes. In one experiment
set, upstream electrodes were active, by applying the required
electrical potential with the auxiliary stabilized power supply. For
this case, the ferricyanide is converted into ferrocyanide continu-
ously in the electrodes placed in the channel wall and the bulk
concentration distribution is expected to evolve from cell to cell,
until a periodic ferricyanide concentration distribution is
obtained between two consecutive ribs. In the other set of
experiments, upstream electrodes were inactive, i.e, without
electric current. With inactive upstream electrodes, the ferricya-
nide concentration distribution is expected to be identical in each
cell as soon as the flow is developed.
The mass-transfer coefficient is related to the limiting current
by
Ilim
kc ¼
nFC b A
where n is the number of electrons participating in the reaction
(in this case n ¼1), F is the Faraday constant, A is the electrode
active surface area (or set of contiguous electrodes, in the case of
the open channel) and Cb is the ferricyanide concentration in bulk
solution. The Sherwood number is given by
Sh ¼ kc h=DAB
The diffusivity DAB of the ferricyanide in a 0.5 M K2CO3
aqueous solution at 25 1C is 6.8  10  10 m2 s  1, while the visc-
osity and density are 1.21  10  3 kg m  1s  1 and 1098 kg m  3,
respectively (Tzanetakis et al., 2004). The corresponding Schmidt
number is Sc ¼1620.
To ensure that the experimental set-up was working as
planned, limiting current measurements were performed in the
open channel configuration and measured Sherwood numbers
were compared against the value predicted by the Graetz-
Lévêque correlation for laminar flow in a narrow rectangular
41
channel (Pickett and Stanmore, 1972). The polarization curve was
obtained by imposing the same electrical potential to a set of
contiguous nickel electrodes, starting from the first one. As
displayed in Fig. 3, there is a very good agreement between the
experimental and theoretical values in the open channel in
laminar flow conditions.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Entrance effects in channels with a ribbed wall
For the channel with a ribbed wall, when the upstream
electrodes are inactive, the Sherwood number for each single
200 (see Figs. 4(a)–(c)) and independent of the l/h ratio. However,
at Re¼500 and for all the tested l/h ratios, Sh increases between
the first and second electrodes and then stabilizes. This is
evidence that the flow becomes periodic after the first electrode
for Rer200 and after the second electrode for Re ¼500.
With the active upstream electrodes, the Sherwood number
decreases abruptly from the first to the second electrode for all
the tested l/h ratios (Figs. 4(a)–(c)). This indicates that the
concentration boundary layer is developing sharply between the
first and the second electrode. For Rer100, and for all the tested
inter-ribs distances, Sh decreases continuously until the last
electrode. Under these conditions, the flow is stable and laminar
(Santos et al., 2007) and, therefore, the concentration boundary
layer thickness is increasing continuously along the channel.
Above a certain Reynolds number, dependent on the inter-ribs
distance l/h, the Sh number decreases after the first two electro-
des and then stabilizes. This means that for such higher Reynolds
numbers, the concentration boundary layer thickness grows along
the two or three first filaments and then becomes constant.
As shown by Santos et al., 2007, for this type of ribbed-wall
channel, the critical Reynolds number (Rec) decreases with the
inter-ribs distance and is approximately equal to 330, 190 and
170 for l/h¼1.9, 3.8 and 5.7 respectively. For Reynolds numbers
above those critical values, Figs. 4(a)–(c) show that the Sh number
stabilizes after the first two or three electrodes. In contrast, for
Reynolds numbers below those critical values, the entrance
effects prevail over all electrodes. This provides strong evidence
that there are no significant entrance effects on Sh above the
ð1Þ
ð2Þ
Fig. 3. Average Sherwood number (Sh) as a function of the non-dimensional
distance to the beginning of the first electrode (x/h), for a rectangular open
channel of height h and Re ¼200.
42 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45

200 200

180 180

160 160
Re
140 Re 140

120 500 120 500

Sh
100
Sh

100
200
80 200
80
100
60 60 100
50
40 50
40

20 20

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
x/h x/h

200

180

160
Re
140
500
120
Sh

100

80
200
60
100
40 50

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
x/h

Fig. 4. Mass transfer (Sh) entrance effects for the channel with a ribbed wall with different inter-rib distances: (a) l/h ¼1.9, (b) l/ h ¼3.8 and c) l/ h ¼ 5.7. ’: inactive
upstream electrodes; þ : active upstream electrodes.

critical Reynolds number, even when there are no transverse ribs 250
Re
or filaments in contact with the electrodes. For sub-critical
500
Reynolds numbers, however, the entrance effects prevail over 200
the entire channel.
150
3.2. Entrance effect in channels with mesh-type spacers 200
100
Sh

In the case of the channel filled with mesh-type spacers, 100

the flow is already periodic in the region of the electrodes
50
50
since the spacers fill also the upstream region of the channel
without electrodes. For this reason, with the mesh-type 30
25 5
spacers, no significant longitudinal variation of the Sherwood 20
number is observed when the upstream electrodes are inac- 15
10
tive (see Figs. 5–7).
5
The results of the Sherwood number distribution in the long- 0
itudinal direction for the channel filled with mesh-type spacers D 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
x/h
are displayed in Fig. 5. This spacer occupies the entire channel, is
symmetric with respect to the mid-horizontal channel plane and Fig. 5. Mass transfer (Sh) entrance effects for the channel filled with the mesh-
one filament layer is in contact with the electrodes. Hence, the type spacers D. ’: inactive upstream electrodes; þ: active upstream electrodes.
average Sherwood number on electrodes placed on both sides of
the channel walls are equal and, for this reason, only one set of the range 70–90 (Koutsou et al., 2007), as mentioned in the
data was obtained. introduction. Hence, the absence of mass-transfer entrance effects
In contrast with the channel with a ribbed wall, mesh-type for Rer50 is not due to flow instabilities. A plausible explanation
spacers D yield practically the same Sherwood number, indepen- is that the filaments that are in contact with the electrodes
dent of the upstream electrodes being active or not. In fact, for all effectively disrupt the concentration boundary layer, enhancing
Reynolds numbers tested, Sh decreases only slightly from the first mass transfer even for stable laminar flow conditions. In addition
to the second electrode and then becomes practically constant, to that, for small Reynolds numbers in the laminar regime,
which means that this type of spacer does not exhibit significant Shakaib et al. (2009) have shown through CFD computations that
mass-transfer entrance effects, even for Reynolds numbers as low the fluid moves above the bottom filament and below the top
as 5. The critical Reynolds numbers for diamond type spacers is in filament, making a zigzag path, which has the consequence of
 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45 43

250 250

Re
200 200
500 Re

150 500
150

200 100
100 200
Sh

Sh
100 100
50 50
50 50
5
30
20
25
20 15
5
15 10
10
5 5
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
x/h x/h

Fig. 6. Mass transfer (Sh) entrance effects for the channel filled with the mesh-type spacers (a) SE and (b) SW. ’: inactive upstream electrodes; þ : active upstream
electrodes.

250 250
Re Re
500
200 200
500

150 150
200
200
100 100
Sh
Sh

100
100
50 50 50
50
30 30
25 25 5
5
20 20
15 15
10 10
5 5
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
x/h x/h

Fig. 7. Mass transfer (Sh) entrance effects for the channel filled with the mesh-type spacers (a) LE and (b) LW. ’: inactive upstream electrodes; þ : active upstream
electrodes.

increasing the shear stress on a major portion of the wall surface,
contributing thus to increase the mass transfer rates.
For the mesh-type spacers SE and SW, Figs. 6a and b display
the Sherwood number for the different electrodes. When trans-
verse filaments are in contact with the electrodes (SE—Fig. 6(a))
and the upstream electrodes are active, the Sh number stabilizes
immediately after the first electrode for Re Z50. For Reynolds
equal to 5, Sh decreases continuously until the 4th electrode and
then stabilizes. This provides evidence that at low Reynolds
numbers, the presence of transverse filaments in contact with
the electrodes does not ensure a complete concentration bound-
ary layer break-up. When the transverse filaments are not in
direct contact with the electrodes (SW— Fig. 6(b)), for ReZ50, the
Sherwood number stabilizes after the second electrode, while for
Re¼5, it always decreases along the channel. This indicates that,
at low Reynolds numbers, the concentration boundary layer
grows continuously along the channel, while at higher Reynolds
numbers it decreases in the first few electrodes and then
stabilizes.
From the previous results, it seems that the critical Reynolds
number for the spacer SW/SE is at least 50, because Sh stabilizes
after the second electrode even when there are no transverse
filaments in contact with the electrodes. The theoretical flow
transition analysis of Alexiadis et al. (2007) for a 2D channel with
circular spacers indicates that the critical Reynolds number
decreases with l/h and is about 180 for l/h¼3. Hence, a substantial
reduction of Rec is expected to occur when l/h changes from 3 to 2.
Small irregularities in the surface of the filaments and the
intrinsic 3D nature of the unstable flow may also contribute to
reduce the value of Rec.
The entrance effects observed with the mesh-type spacer LE
and LW (Fig. 7) are similar to the ones observed with the spacer
SE and SW. The oblique filaments of the spacer LE in contact with
the electrodes effectively disrupt the concentration boundary
layer, except for Re¼5, where a small decrease is observed for
Sh between the first and the second electrodes. When the oblique
filaments are not in contact with the electrodes (spacer LW), the
Sh number becomes developed after the second electrode for
ReZ50. For Re ¼5, the Sh number decreases along the channel in
the same behavior as that for the spacer SW.
3.3. Sh vs Re in developed mass transfer conditions
As shown in the previous section and for some conditions,
fully developed mass transfer conditions can prevail in the last
electrodes inside the spacer filled or ribbed channel, with
upstream active electrodes. In these particular conditions, the
Sherwood number decreases for the first electrodes and then
stabilizes. The Sh average value at the last three electrodes is
displayed in Fig. 8 for all the experimental conditions with
44 C. Rodrigues et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 78 (2012) 38–45
250
Rib.wall l/h = 1.9
Rib.wall l/h = 3.8
Rib.wall l/h = 5.7
200 Spacer D
Spacer LE
Spacer LW
Spacer SE
150
Spacer SW
Diamond spacer, l/h = 3
Sh
(Koutsou et al., 2009)
100
50
0
0 100 200 300 400
Re
Fig. 8. Sherwood number vs. Reynolds number for developed mass transfer
conditions and upstream active electrodes. The Sherwood number displayed is
the average of the values corresponding to the last three electrodes. Literature
data (Koutsou et al., 2009) is used for comparison purposes.
developed mass transfer conditions and active upstream
electrodes.
The spacer LE, which has oblique filaments in contact with the
electrodes, has the highest Sherwood number and induces devel-
oped mass transfer conditions from Re ¼5 to 500. The diamond-
shape spacer D has a Sherwood number that is between the
values of the spacers LE and LW, with the advantage of main-
taining the same distribution of mass -transfer rate on both active
walls of a spiral-wound module feed channel. The channel with
ribbed walls displays developed mass transfer conditions only
above the critical Reynolds number.
For comparison purposes, literature data for a diamond-shape
spacer similar to the spacer D (Koutsou et al. 2009) is also
displayed in Fig. 8. Both spacers yield almost the same values of
the Sherwood number, despite the difference in the ratio l/h
between the two spacers.
4. Conclusions
Entrance effects on the Sherwood number were investigated in
a narrow rectangular channel, both with a ribbed wall and filled
with mesh-type spacers, for Reynolds numbers in the range 5–
500, using the limiting current technique to several electrodes
placed in series.
With inactive upstream electrodes, for the case of the narrow
rectangular channel with a ribbed wall, the entrance effects on Sh
are restricted to a small region in the channel entrance where the
flow is developing. When the upstream electrodes are active and
the flow is laminar, a solute concentration layer adjacent to the
electrodes’ surface builds-up along the channel, imposing
entrance effects on the Sherwood number. Above the critical
Reynolds number, a developed mass-transfer condition is reached
after the first three electrodes.
The channel filled with the diamond-shape spacer (D) has no
entrance effects on the Sherwood number either with inactive or
active upstream electrodes for all the range of Reynolds numbers
tested. Hence, this type of spacer is capable of maintaining fully
developed mass-transfer conditions in the whole rectangular
channel for Reynolds numbers as low as 5, in laminar flow. For
mesh-type spacers with transverse (SE) or oblique filaments (LE)
in contact with the electrodes, significant entrance effects were
observed only for the lowest tested Reynolds number of 5. In this
case, the filaments in contact with the electrodes are very
effective in disrupting the concentration boundary layer.
In all the conditions tested, there is evidence that in the
transitional flow regime, above the critical Reynolds number,
mass-transfer entrance effect are negligible either for the
spacer-filled channels or ribbed-wall channels tested. Hence, this
work suggests that periodic boundary conditions may be used
always for flow and mass-transfer CFD computations in spacer-
filled channels in the cases where transitional flow regime
prevails. For laminar flow, the periodic boundary condition must
be used with care because strong mass-transfer entrance effects
may be found, depending on the spacer geometry.
Nomenclature
500 A electrode active area (m2)
Cb solute molar concentration in bulk solution (m3)
DAB mass-diffusion coefficient (m2 s-1)
F Faraday constant (C mol-1)
h channel height (m)
Ilim limiting current (A)
kc average mass-transfer coefficient (m s-1)
l distance between consecutive ribs or filaments (m)
n number of electrons
Re Reynolds number, Re ¼U0h/n
Rec Critical Reynolds number
Sh Sherwood number, Sh¼kch/DAB
U0 superficial velocity in the rectangular channel (m s-1)
x distance from the middle point of an electrode to the
beginning of the first electrode (m)
Greek letters
a spacer flow attack angle (1)
b spacer internal angle (1)
n kinematic viscosity (m2 s-1)
Acknowledgments
The author Vı́tor Geraldes is grateful to Fundac- a~ o para a
Ciência e a Tecnologia for the financial support through the
project PTDC/EQU-EQU/65920/2006 and the author Carina Rodri-
gues is grateful for the Ph.D. grant SFRH/BD/61406/2009.
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