Light utilization in microfluidic photocatalytic reactors

This paper reports a modeling study integrated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD), photocatalytic reaction kinetics and irradiance distribution, which enables prediction of the performance of a microfluidic photocatalytic reactor (MPR) for dye degradation. The model is validated against experimental data. The analyses showed that comparing with conventional photocatalytic reaction system in bulk container, the MPR could treat reactant with much higher concentration, due to the better light utilization in the reaction system, indicating the promising of using microfluidic technology to enhance the photocatalytic system. The study also discusses on strategies to achieve optimal design and operation conditions to further improve the MPR performance.