Mathematical modeling of planar and spherical vapor–liquid phase interfaces for multicomponent fluids

Abstract

Development of methods for accurate modeling of phase interfaces is important for understanding various natural processes and for applications in technology such as power production and carbon dioxide separation and storage. In particular, prediction of the course of the non-equilibrium phase transition processes requires knowledge of the properties of the strongly curved phase interfaces of microscopic droplets. In our work, we focus on the spherical vapor–liquid phase interfaces for binary mixtures. We developed a robust computational method to determine the density and concentration profiles. The fundamentals of our approach lie in the Cahn-Hilliard gradient theory, allowing to transcribe the functional formulation into a system of ordinary Euler-Langrange equations. This system is then split and modified into a shape suitable for iterative computation. For this task, we combine the Newton-Raphson and the shooting methods providing a good convergence speed. For the thermodynamic roperties, the PC–SAFT equation of state is used. We determine the density and concentration profiles for spherical phase interfaces at various saturation factors for the binary mixture of CO2 and C9H20. The computed concentration profiles allow to the determine the work of formation and other characteristics of the microscopic droplets.