Project - GLITR

GLITR

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Breaking through: The Impact of Turbulence on the Gas-Liquid Interface (GLITR)

Research project

Breaking through: The Impact of Turbulence on the Gas-Liquid Interface (GLITR)

The project aim is to understand how gases, e.g., O2 and CO2, are transported from a turbulent gas, e.g., air, into a turbulent liquid, e.g., water. The most common version of this interface we interact with every day is the atmosphere-ocean interface.

About GLITR

A rigorous understanding of the role of turbulence, with its wide range of scales and phenomena, on mass transport across a gas-liquid interface (GLI) is one of the remaining challenges in fluid mechanics.

Its importance is illustrated by considering that nearly 50% of anthropogenic CO2 is driven into the oceans by a turbulent process we do not fully understand. We know that turbulence modifies the topology of the GLI from both the liquid and gas sides, but due to the complexity of the problem, we do not understand the dominant mechanisms that control this process or how they connect to mass transfer.

Our group has previously shown how turbulence can be tailored in the lab and how the parameters of the turbulence influence shear on a surface, making us well placed to tackle this problem. A plethora of models based on limited data exist for mass transfer across a GLI, but they have contrasting backgrounds, parameters, and results. This is indicative that something is missing and that there is a critical need for deeper understanding of the underlying phenomena.

GLITR has been working to provide a step change in our understanding of phenomena at the GLI by initiating a paradigm shift in the way lab experiments are conducted, considering the complexity of interacting turbulent gas and liquid flows for the first time. Tailored turbulence with adjustable intensity and length scales will be generated with an active turbulence generator in both the gas and liquid simultaneously to provide new insight not previously accessible.

Thus far, we have developed a novel air-water facility where we can control turbulent and the flow in both the air and water independently, and measurement techniques that allow us to track the fluid motion in both the air and the water, the spatial distribution of oxygen being transported in water, and the surface topology simultaneously. Using these techniques we have demonstrated that turbulence alone can result in a 45% increase in the gas transfer velocity of O2 from air to water and that sub-surface turbulence is more important than capillary waves for this process. As GLITR moves forward, we will continue to press forward with technique development and elucidate the physics that govern this complicated process.

Publications

GLITR publications available in Cristin

Project timeline and Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe 1.1 European Research Council under Grant Agreement No 101041000.

GLITR will run from 2022 until the end of 2027.