Mass transfer enhancement by the alkaline hydrolysis of ethyl acetate in a single droplet system

Transient mass transfer behavior in a single droplet system was investigated in the presence of a chemical reaction: alkaline hydrolysis (by NaOH) of ethyl acetate. The transfer of ethyl acetate occurred from the continuous (cyclohexanol) to the dispersed (water) phase. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was conducted for a numerical analysis of the system. The physical mass transfer was simulated showing a good agreement with the experimental result whereas the simulation significantly underestimated the experimental result in the presence of the hydrolysis reaction of ethyl acetate. An interfacial turbulence induced by the reaction product was suggested to explain the deviation between the experimental and the simulation. Effective diffusivity was used for simulating the more enhanced mass transfer rate in the system. The concentration change inside a droplet with time could be calculated with a reasonable accuracy by the introduction of the effective diffusivity in the simulation model.