Computational fluid dynamics study of viscous fingering in supercritical fluid chromatography

摘要

Highlights?Computational fluid dynamics model developed to study solute propagation in SFC.?Simulations verify hypothesis of viscous fingering in SFC systems.?Coupled effect of viscous fingering and plug effect contribute to peak distortions.?Solute band broadening in small-volume injections influenced by plug effect.AbstractAxi-symmetric numerical simulations are carried out to study the dynamics of a plug introduced through a mixed-stream injection in supercritical fluid chromatographic columns. The computational fluid dynamics model developed in this work takes into account both the hydrodynamics and adsorption equilibria to describe the phenomena of viscous fingering and plug effect that contribute to peak distortions in mixed-stream injections. The model was implemented into commercial computational fluid dynamics software using user-defined functions. The simulations describe the propagation of