TY - JOUR
T1 - Geometric optimization of liquid-liquid slug flow in a flow-focusing millifluidic device for synthesis of nanomaterials
AU - Li, Yuehao
AU - Yamane, Dawit G.
AU - Li, Shuning
AU - Biswas, Sanchita
AU - Reddy, Rupesh K.
AU - Goettert, Jost S.
AU - Nandakumar, Krishnaswamy
AU - Kumar, Challa S.S.R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported as part of the Center for Atomic Level Catalyst Design, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001058. Innovation Grant 2010 from Center for Atomic-level Catalyst Design (CALC-D) is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2013/2/1
Y1 - 2013/2/1
N2 - With recent increasing trend towards development of " easy to fabricate" and simple millifluidic systems that could provide required control as well as high throughput, we present here a demonstration of potential opportunities for controlled droplet/slug formation within a flow-focusing millifluidic chip. Numerical simulations supported by experimental evidence show that the millifluidic device provides similar control in slug formation as in the case of microfluidic devices. More specifically, our investigations reveal that the acquired slug volume depends on the squeezing volume (Vsqueeze) and blockage volume (Vblock) in the squeezing regime. While the squeezing volume (Vsqueeze) can be tuned by manipulating the flow rate of the continuous phase, the blockage volume (Vblock) depended only on the geometry of the focusing region. Based on numerical simulations, two millifluidic flow focusing channel designs to produce small slugs were suggested. The slugs were utilized for the synthesis of uniform copper nanoparticles. The findings are anticipated to have implications for a number fields ranging from fluid dynamics, lab-on-a-chip devices, chemical engineering, nanomaterials synthesis, protein crystallization to advanced drug delivery as well as chip fabrication.
AB - With recent increasing trend towards development of " easy to fabricate" and simple millifluidic systems that could provide required control as well as high throughput, we present here a demonstration of potential opportunities for controlled droplet/slug formation within a flow-focusing millifluidic chip. Numerical simulations supported by experimental evidence show that the millifluidic device provides similar control in slug formation as in the case of microfluidic devices. More specifically, our investigations reveal that the acquired slug volume depends on the squeezing volume (Vsqueeze) and blockage volume (Vblock) in the squeezing regime. While the squeezing volume (Vsqueeze) can be tuned by manipulating the flow rate of the continuous phase, the blockage volume (Vblock) depended only on the geometry of the focusing region. Based on numerical simulations, two millifluidic flow focusing channel designs to produce small slugs were suggested. The slugs were utilized for the synthesis of uniform copper nanoparticles. The findings are anticipated to have implications for a number fields ranging from fluid dynamics, lab-on-a-chip devices, chemical engineering, nanomaterials synthesis, protein crystallization to advanced drug delivery as well as chip fabrication.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84873748940&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cej.2012.11.111
DO - 10.1016/j.cej.2012.11.111
M3 - 文章
AN - SCOPUS:84873748940
SN - 1385-8947
VL - 217
SP - 447
EP - 459
JO - Chemical Engineering Journal
JF - Chemical Engineering Journal
ER -