What Chemical Engineers Can Learn from Shrimp

This review focuses on how the cavitation mechanism in the snapping shrimp can be explored to intensify various chemical engineering applications. Effective bubble collapse can lead to hot spot formation, increased transport coefficients (momentum, heat, and mass), and enhanced interfacial area and also results in the formation of highly reactive radicals. Cavitation's ability to induce rapid micromixing, enhance mass transfer, and facilitate nucleophilic chemical reactions can find applications in various industries. An overview of cavitation applications, reactors used for cavitation, effects of operating parameters, and conclusions drawn from the studies so far is presented. Cavitation provides significant benefits for applications in synthesis reactions, wastewater treatment, food processing, emulsification, extraction, and crystallization. Learnings from snapping shrimp can be translated into process intensification of physicochemical and biological transformations in chemical engineering by harnessing these cavitational effects.