Mass transfer around a spheroid buried in granular beds of small inert particles and exposed to fluid flow

Abstract

Mass transfer between a single prolate spheroid buried in a porous media and exposedto fluid flow has been theoretically studied, for convection with moleculardiffusion. A general solution of this problem is not available analytically and twoparticular cases were considered for the purpose of the present work. The analyticalsteady-state solutions for the limiting cases of mass transfer with a thin concentrationboundary layer (high values of Peclet number) and the pure diffusionregime (diffusion in a stagnant fluid) were obtained. The solution is expected todescribe the problem of mass transfer between a large soluble prolate spheroidand the fluid flowing around it in the interstices of a packed bed, with an error ofless than 10 %.