Enhancing Cavitation

Perfectly pure and degassed water without dust or other solid material will have a tremendously high cavitation threshold, so any interference creating liquid defects in the structure will favor cavitation. Sonochemical aids are to be defined as any means of enhancing the number of cavitational events. 

---

It has been widely demonstrated that low frequencies, close to 20 kHz, enhance cavitation, which is the source of the dramatic effect of ultrasonic power on chemical reactivity. However, higher frequencies are advantageous when radical formation is the key to facilitating, accelerating or making possible a given reaction. 

Ultrasound affects bubble interaction in two ways - vibration causes an attraction between two bubbles (Bjerkens force) and the Bernoulli force arises from the flow of the fluid parallel or normal to a bubble. A perpendicular flow also causes interbubble attraction. Additionally, if bubbles increase in size, due to the ultrasound, they rise much more quickly, proportional to the (radius). As mentioned above (Section 10.5.1.2), ultrasound enhances cavitation, which is also beneficial. 

The phenomenon of acoustic cavitation results in an enormous concentration of energy. If one considers the energy density in an acoustic field that produces cavitation and that in the coUapsed cavitation bubble, there is an amplification factor of over eleven orders of magnitude. The enormous local temperatures and pressures so created result in phenomena such as sonochemistry and sonoluminescence and provide a unique means for fundamental studies of chemistry and physics under extreme conditions. A diverse set of apphcations of ultrasound to enhancing chemical reactivity has been explored, with important apphcations in mixed-phase synthesis, materials chemistry, and biomedical uses. 

Cavitations generate several effects. On one hand, both stable and transient cavitations generate turbulence and liquid circulation - acoustic streaming - in the proximity of the microbubble. This phenomenon enhances mass and heat transfer and improves (micro)mixing as well. In membrane systems, increase of fiux through the membrane and reduction of fouling has been observed [56]. 

Ultrasound can thus be used to enhance kinetics, flow, and mass and heat transfer. The overall results are that organic synthetic reactions show increased rate (sometimes even from hours to minutes, up to 25 times faster), and/or increased yield (tens of percentages, sometimes even starting from 0% yield in nonsonicated conditions). In multiphase systems, gas-liquid and solid-liquid mass transfer has been observed to increase by 5- and 20-fold, respectively [35]. Membrane fluxes have been enhanced by up to a factor of 8 [56]. Despite these results, use of acoustics, and ultrasound in particular, in chemical industry is mainly limited to the fields of cleaning and decontamination [55]. One of the main barriers to industrial application of sonochemical processes is control and scale-up of ultrasound concepts into operable processes. Therefore, a better understanding is required of the relation between a cavitation coUapse and chemical reactivity, as weU as a better understanding and reproducibility of the influence of various design and operational parameters on the cavitation process. Also, rehable mathematical models and scale-up procedures need to be developed [35, 54, 55]. 

An example of enhancement in mass transfer by acoustic cavitation is the increase in the limiting current density in electrolysis [79], The electrochemistry with ultrasound is called sonoelectrochemistry. Another example is ultrasonic cleaning [80], Soluble contaminants on a solid surface dissolve into the liquid faster with acoustic cavitation. Insoluble contaminants are also removed from a solid surface with ultrasound. This is also induced by acoustic cavitation in many cases, but in some other cases it is by acoustic streaming [81-85],... 

Tuziuti T, Yasui K, Sivakumar M, Iida Y, Miyoshi N (2005) Correlation between acoustic cavitation noise and yield enhancement of sonochemical reaction by particle addition. J Phys Chem A 109 4869 1872... 

Overall, it can be summarized that, use of multiple frequency irradiations based on the use of multiple transducers gives much higher cavitational activity in the reactor and hence enhanced results. It is also recommended that a combination of low frequency irradiation (typically 20 kHz) with other frequencies in the range of 50-200 kHz should be used for obtaining maximum benefits from the cavitational reactors. 

If the power dissipated into the system is increased, although the collapse pressure, as predicted using bubble dynamics analysis [14], decreases with an increase in the intensity, the number of cavitation events also increases (increase is substantial as compared to the negative effect of decreasing collapse pressure) thereby increasing the overall cavitational activity and hence enhanced effects can be observed. Usually the increase in number of cavities generated seizes after a... 

Cavitation induced turbulence also enhances the rates of the desorption of intermediate products from the catalyst active sites and helps in continuous cleaning of the catalyst surface. 

When deciding on the type of the reactor required for a particular chemical or physical transformation, the first question that needs to be addresses is whether the cavitation enhancement is the result of an improved mechanical process (due to enhanced mixing). If this is the case, then cavitation pretreatment of a slurry may be all that is required before the system is subjected to conventional type transformation scheme and the scale up of the pretreatment vessel would be a relatively simpler task. 

Design of sonochemical reactors is a very important parameter in deciding the net cavitational effects. Use of multiple transducers and multiple frequencies with possibility of variable power dissipation is recommended. Theoretical analysis for predicting the cavitational activity distribution is recommended for optimization of the geometry of the reactor including the transducer locations in the case of multiple transducer reactors. Use of process intensifying parameters at zones with minimum cavitational intensity should help in enhancing the net cavitational effects. 

Feng R, Zhao Y, Zhu C, Mason TJ (2002) Enhancement of ultrasonic cavitation yield by multi-frequency sonication. Ultrason Sonochem 9 231-236... 

---