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Simulating Dynamics of Immiscible Liquids Separation Using Microfluidics

Kamrani, Soroush | 2019

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 51816 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Mohammadi, Aliasghar
  7. Abstract:
  8. Most of industrial and laboratory processes are faced with liquid-liquid emulsions particularly aqueous-organic ones in their different product streams which determine the need to perform phase separation due to enviromental problems or need to increase the product purity. In this project, due to presence of a water-hexane two phase flow mixture in the outflow of a microractor that performs Lithium-Bromine exchange reaction, a capillary microchip separator has been designed in order to separate water through capillary channel and hexane through main channel outlet using interfacial forces and wettability effects. To obtain a desired phase separation, the pressure drop through main channel should be more than capillary channel so that due to more resistance in the main channel route, capillary channel way would be chosen by both phases and also the difference of main and capillary channel pressure drop should be less than capillary pressure in order to prevent the nonwetting phase breakthrough the capillary channel. There are many design parameters which are effective in designing a capillary microchip separator e.g. the width and length of capillary channel, the entrance and exit length of main channel, the angle of center, left side and right side of the capillary channel with the main channel and the channel depth. Individually investigation of each mentioned parameter effects shows that six parameters including the width and length of capillary channel, the exit length of main channel, the angle of left side and right side of the capillary channel with the main channel and the channel depth have the most effects on hexane and water recovery through capillary channel which bring about less than 1 to more than 99 percent hexane recovery and 5 to 90 percent water recovery and the other two parameters do not have significant effect on the recoveries. By defining the effective range of each important parameter, the mutual effect of each parameters have been investigated using Design Expert software and surface response method and two models have been obtained to estimate the water and hexane recoveries. By optimizing the models in order to minimize the hexane recovery and maximize water recovery through capillary channel, the optimized design of the capillary microchip separator has been obtained. Water recovery of more than 48 percent and hexane recovery of less than 1.5 percent through capillary channel has been obtained by the optimum design
  9. Keywords:
  10. Microfluidic System ; Capillary Force ; Phases Separation ; Liquid-Liquid Separation ; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

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