The effect of flow distribution on mass transfer of gas-liquid two-phase flow in two parallelized microchannels in a microfluidic loop

The gas-liquid two-phase flow distribution and mass transfer performance of CO 2 absorption into 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP) with ethylene glycol (EG) in two parallelized microchannels in a microfluidic loop were investigated. Four flow patterns were observed: filtering flow, repartition flow, breakup flow and irregular flow. The results showed that the uniformity of flow distribution is jointly affected by bubble length at T-junction and the hydrodynamic feedback of the downstream channels. Meanwhile, the uniform flow distribution facilitates the mass transfer performance. Furthermore, a prediction model of liquid side volumetric mass transfer coefficient under breakup flow in parallel microchannels was established by considering the relative error E r characterizing the flow maldistribution.