Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Selangor 47500, Malaysia; School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Republic of Singapore. Electronic address: kekboon.goh@monash.edu
  • 2 Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
  • 3 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Republic of Singapore
  • 4 Hubei Key Laboratory of Roadway Bridge & Structure Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
  • 5 School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
J Colloid Interface Sci, 2022 Feb 15;608(Pt 2):1999-2008.
PMID: 34749148 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.10.092

Abstract

HYPOTHESIS: The performance of a polymeric core-shell microreactor depends critically on (i) mass transfer, (ii) catalyzed chemical reaction, and (iii) deactivation within the nonuniform core-shell microstructure environment. As such, these three basic working principles control the active catalytic phase density in the reactor.

THEORY: We present a high-fidelity, image-based nonequilibrium computational model to quantify and visualize the mass transport as well as the deactivation process of a core-shell polymeric microreactor. In stark contrast with other published works, our microstructure-based computer simulation can provide a single-particle visualization with a micrometer spatial accuracy.

FINDINGS: We show how the interplay of kinetics and thermodynamics controls the product-induced deactivation process. The model predicts and visualizes the non-trivial, spatially resolved active catalyst phase patterns within a core-shell system. Moreover, we also show how the microstructure influences the formation of foulant within a core-shell structure; that is, begins from the core and grows radially onto the shell section. Our results suggest that the deactivation process is highly governed by the porosity/microstructure of the microreactor as well as the affinity of the products towards the solid phase of the reactor.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.