Annular Centrifugal Contactors (ACCs) are a promising process intensification technology for liquid–liquid extraction. Still, there is a limited understanding of the hydrodynamic conditions observed within ACCs and Computational Fluid Dynamics has the potential to shed light on this. However, the presence of a broad range of interfacial scales prevents the use of standard multiphase flow models. Therefore, a generalized multiphase modelling approach has been proposed, which allows for the simulation of multiscale multiphase flows. This approach has been applied to the simulation of a laboratory-scale ACC. It is demonstrated that the approach can provide information on the hydrodynamic behaviour of the system including hold-up, droplet size distribution and residence time; this, in turn, allows evaluation of the mass transfer performance. It is concluded that the modelling technique represents a valuable tool for gaining in-depth understanding of the hydrodynamics of ACCs, thus allowing for the prediction of their performance.

环形离心接触器（ACC）是用于液-液萃取的有前途的工艺强化技术。尽管如此，对于在ACC中观察到的流体动力学条件的理解仍然有限，因此计算流体动力学有可能对此有所启发。但是，界面范围广泛，阻碍了标准多相流模型的使用。因此，提出了一种通用的多相建模方法，该方法可以模拟多尺度多相流。该方法已应用于模拟实验室规模的ACC。结果表明，该方法可以提供有关系统流体力学行为的信息，包括滞留率，液滴尺寸分布和停留时间。这进而允许评估传质性能。