Modeling and Simulation of Wheat Grains Ozonation

In order to improve the ozonation process efficiency, reliable modeling and simulation tools are needed. In this study, wheat grains were exposed to ozone gas for 45 min at an applied dose of 3.5 g O3/kg of wheat in a semi-industrial fixed-bed reactor. The consumed and the residual ozone were measured continuously. These values were fit, at a first step, to a two consecutive reactions kinetic model. A second part of our work led us to develop and assess a new simplified one reaction model. Cuticle layer hypothesis was later adopted to improve our original model. Using Matlab ® , the reactions kinetics and mass transfer coefficients of these models were determined. Our kinetic model predicted the experimental data with high accuracy. In addition, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed in COMSOL ® v.5.3a in order to study the gas flow inside the reactor. This new approach is a first step to develop a comprehensive coupled model involving the ozonation reactions as well as the ozone diffusion in a porous medium