First electrochemical Couette-Taylor reactor for studying the influence of transport phenomena on electrochemical kinetics
Résumé
Electroactive biofilms are powerful catalysts of many electrochemical reactions of interest. Their development and electrochemical efficiency can be considerably dependent on the solution hydrodynamics. Unfortunately, analytical devices that are suited to the study of the effects of hydrodynamics on electroactive biofilms are still lacking. This study presents an electrochemical Couette-Taylor reactor (eCTR), which meets this objective. It integrated 20 large-sized electrodes individually addressed and exposed to the same hydrodynamics. Fluid dynamics was controlled by rotating the inner cylinder of the eCTR at speeds from 1 to 200 RPM. The device was characterized in abiotic condition using hexacyanoferrate (III/II) as model reactive species. The limiting currents () recorded with different concentrations of hexacyanoferrate and at different rotation speeds of the inner cylinder () were used to calculate the Nernst diffusive layer thickness (), which ranged from 14.6 to 423 µm. Two hydrodynamic regimes were identified: the wavy vortex flow for from 1 to 10 RPM and the turbulent vortex flow for values higher than 15 RPM, which corresponded to the correlations and , respectively. The second correlation confirmed the theoretical equation established by Gabe and Robinson for turbulent flow. In contrast, the wavy vortex flow was a specific regime, which cannot be approached by the laminar or turbulent hypothesis. Dimensionless correlations gave comparable results between eCTR and rotating cylinder electrodes under turbulent vortex flow and confirmed the specific behavior of the Couette-Taylor wavy vortex flow.
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