HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER IN REACTIVE POROUS MEDIA WITH LOCAL NONEQUILIBRIUM CONDITIONS

A two-dimensional mathematical model is developed to simulate the coupled heat and mass transfer in porous media involving strong exothermic chemical reaction. This type of problem has received great attention due to its relevance to a wide range of engineering applications, such as storage of food waste and other products, chemical reactors, drying technologies, catalytic reactors and many others. The flow in our problem is governed by the Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer model, which is solved numerically with the finite volume method. The effect of pertinent parameters such as Darcy number, Biot interstitial number, Reynolds number, solid-to-fluid conductivity ratio, and Frank-Kamenetskii number are analyzed. The influence of the exothermic chemical reaction on both heat and mass transfers is discussed. Both quantitative and qualitative results are presented.