Chemical Reaction of Glycerine by Film Boiling
Contact: Prof. C.T. Avedisian cta2@cornell.edu
Phone: 5-5105
Office: 193 Grumman Hall
This project concerns developing a new platform for promoting chemical reaction of organic liquids based on "film boiling", and applying it to converting glycerine to synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen). The reaction process involves establishing film boiling around a horizontal tube immersed in a pool of a liquid whose vapors serve as the "reactant". The figure below shows the nature of film boiling, here being on a 2.4 mm diameter tube in a pool of a glycerine/water mixture.
Figure 2: Photograph showing film boiling on an Inconel 600 tube in a glycerine/water mixture.
Once the film is formed, reactions occur inside the film and the products are carried away by bubbles.
We have constructed an apparatus to study this process and applied it to methanol and ethylene glycol. The next step is to apply the concept to glycerine. Some hardware modifications will be required to improve the procedure and data recording. The project can follow two tracks: 1) modifying the apparatus to including a wire instead of a tube as the heating element, and 2) extending a theoretical analysis for film boiling to include radiation and chemical reaction. Familiarity with LABVIEW and MATLAB are important. The student would work with a Ph.D candidate in the modification of the experimental design and analysis.