Theoretical Analysis of the Velocity Profiles in a Diacell® Cell Applying Computational Fluid Dynamics

The DiaCell electrochemical reactor has been used in several processes such as disinfection wi thout chorine addition, advanced oxidation processes and residual water treatment. The reactor design allows a modification of the configuration from 1 to 4 compartments, changing the effective reactor volume with separators of different sizes that are internal and parallel feed. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of a DiaCell reactor is needed to describe the detail ed flow field and the velocity profiles at each step of the compartments. The CFD analysis is an important tool to scale up the process in a swift and efficient way. The theoretical analysis presented in this paper shows changes in the velocity profiles and flow distribution as a function of the width of the selected separators and the residence time of the cell for four different geometry configurations. The reactor configuration with two separators of 0.3 cm present the most even flow distribution. Furthermore, the analysis shows that it is possible to evaluate for each of th e four different geometries where the flow is even and the section of the flow close to the electrode that it is not uniform.