Axial dispersion in liquid flow through packed reticulated metallic foams and fixed beds of different structures

This paper deals with the experimental study of the axial dispersion phenomenon during flow through and by fixed beds packed with sheets of nickel foams. Its purpose is to characterize the hydrodynamic behaviour of a liquid flowing through different nickel foams according to configurations corresponding to the two working modes of volumic electrodes. A comparison of axial dispersion in liquid flow through various porous media determined by using the same procedure is presented. The axial dispersion is very low for flow through reticulated nickel foams, while tightly packed beds of very anisotropic flat plates show a very dispersive behaviour. For all other media a single correlation equation based on dimensionless numbers taking structural parameters into account is proposed.