Short-time numerical simulation of ultrasonically assisted electrochemical removal of strontium from water

3D numerical simulations and measurements on an electrochemical reactor were used to analyze the efficiency of strontium removal from water, with and without simultaneous ultrasound treatment. Ultrasound was generated using 4 ultrasonic transducers with an operating frequency of 25 kHz. The reactor used 8 aluminum electrodes arranged in two blocks. Strontium ions in water are modeled as particles characterized by a charge of 3.2∙10-19 C and a diameter of 1.2∙10-8 m. The numerical model was created in Flow-3D software using the basic hydrodynamic module, electrostatic module, and general moving objects module. The performance of the studied reactor variants by numerical simulations is defined by the ratio of the number of model strontium particles permanently retained on the electrodes at the end of the simulation period to the initial number of particles in the water. For the laboratory reactor, the effect of strontium removal is defined by the ratio of the homogeneous strontium concentration in the water at the end and at the beginning of the experiments. The results show that the use of ultrasound increases the effect of strontium removal from 10.3% to 11.2% after 180 seconds of water treatment. The results of numerical simulations agree with the results of measurements on a reactor with the same geometrical characteristics.