Lattice Boltzmann simulation on liquid flow and mass transport in a bioreactor with cylinder bundle for hydrogen production

摘要

The lattice Boltzmann method is adopted to simulate hydrodynamics and mass transfer accompanying with biochemical reaction in a channel with cylinder bundle, which is the scenario of biohydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria in the biofilm attached on the surface of cylinder bundle in photobioreactor. The effects of cylinder spacing, Reynolds number and cylinder arrangement are investigated. The numerical results reveal that highest glucose concentration and the lowest hydrogen concentration are obtained at the front of the first row cylinders for all cases. The staggered arrangement leads to an increment in average drag coefficient, Sherwood number and consumption efficiency of substrate under a given condition, and the increment in Sherwood number reaches up to 30 %, while that in drag coefficient is around 1 %, moreover, the increment in consumption efficiency reaches the maximum value of 12 %. The results indicate that the staggered arrangement is beneficial to the mass transfer and biochemical reaction.