Acoustic resonance and atomization for gas-liquid systems in microreactors
It is shown that a liquid slug in gas-liquid segmented flow in microchannels can act as an acoustic resonator to disperse large amounts of small liquid droplets, commonly referred to as atomization, into the gas phase. We investigate the principles of acoustic resonance within a liquid slug through experimental analysis and numerical simulation. A mechanism of atomization in the confined channels and a hypothesis based on high-speed image analysis that links acoustic resonance within a liquid slug with the observed atomization is proposed. The observed phenomenon provides a novel source of confined micro sprays and could be an avenue, amongst others, to overcome mass transfer limitations for gas-liquid processes in flow. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research andinnovation programme (grant agreement No. 101001024) . Z.D. acknowledges funding from Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Grant No. 2011009) . D. S. and R. M. acknowledge funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkodowskaCurie grant agreement No 721290 (MSCA-ETN COSMIC) .