Effects of shape oscillation on mass transfer from a Taylor bubble

Interface tracking simulations of mass transfer from Taylor bubbles were carried out to investigate effects of shape oscillation on the mass transfer. Mass transfer from carbon dioxide Taylor bubbles in a glycerol-water solution was also measured to obtain experimental data for the validation of the numerical method. A high spatial resolution was used to resolve thin concentration boundary layers on the bubble interface, which enabled us to capture the agitation of boundary layer due to interfacial waves. The predicted mass transfer coefficients were in good agreements with the experimental data, provided that the spatial resolution was high enough to capture thin concentration boundary layers of high Schmidt number Taylor bubbles. The simulations have made it clear that the effect of agitation of concentration boundary layer due to interfacial waves on the total mass transfer rate is small and a fluctuation of the Sherwood number is caused by a fluctuation of the bubble surface area. This result implies that interface tracking methods using boundary layer approximations can give accurate predictions for mass transfer from bubbles even when the flow field is not fully resolved when the wave effect on the net mass transfer is negligible.