Disinfection Performance Improvement of UV Reactor by Baffle Design

Disinfection Performance Improvement of UV Reactor by Baffle Design

Blog Article

This study aims to analyze the effects of baffle shape and arrangement on the disinfection performance of a multi-lamp annular UV reactor.The multi-lamp reactor is designed to overcome the treatment limitations of a single-lamp system and is intended for large-scale applications requiring high flow rate treatment.Baffles are implemented within the reactor to improve flow uniformity and UV fluence distribution, and the resulting changes in disinfection performance are evaluated.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted to click here simulate the turbulent flow within the reactor, while the UV fluence rate distribution was predicted using the Multiple Segment Source Summation (MSSS) method.This method was implemented as a user-defined function and integrated into the commercial CFD software ANSYS CFX 2023R1.The behavior of microorganisms was simulated using a Lagrangian-based particle tracking method, which enabled the estimation of accumulated UV exposure for each particle over its residence time to evaluate disinfection performance.

Furthermore, the study compared and analyzed the effects of different baffle shapes (ring, perforated, and mixer) and various multi-baffle configurations on disinfection efficiency.The analysis revealed that the shape of the inlet and outlet pipes affects flow uniformity; however, this effect diminishes when baffles are installed inside the reactor.In the performance comparison of different baffle shapes, the mixer baffle exhibited the highest disinfection efficiency by generating a helical flow pattern, maintaining high UV fluence, and minimizing the number of particles receiving low UV doses, thereby maximizing disinfection performance.

Conversely, the ring baffle exhibited a reduction in disinfection efficiency due to decreased residence time, as increased flow velocity resulted in insufficient UV exposure.The perforated baffle, on the other hand, contributed to a more uniform flow distribution, reducing the variance in UV fluence.Regarding the number of baffles, an increase in the number of ring and mixer baffles led to a decline in UV exposure time.

This is attributed to the reduction in flow cross-sectional area, which in turn increases flow velocity and decreases particle residence time.In contrast, the perforated baffle exhibited improved UV exposure time as the number of baffles increased, due to enhanced flow mixing and reduced velocity.This study provides essential design guidelines for optimizing baffle shape and arrangement in multi-lamp UV reactors.

In particular, the mixer baffle was identified as an effective design for optimizing disinfection click here performance, as it enhances UV fluence uniformity through superior mixing effects.Future research should focus on further performance optimization through the consideration of various flow rate conditions and additional reactor design improvements.