Microscopic Particle Image Velocimetry Analysis of Multiphase Flow in a Porous Media Micromodel.

Pore-scale oil displacement behavior was investigated in a porous media micromodel using microscopic particle image velocimetry (μPIV). Porous media micromodels consisting of an ordered square array of cylindrical pillars with 50 and 70% porosities were fabricated with photolithography. The oil displacement was performed with the injection of water at flow rates of 37.

Droplet coalescence and phase separation in a topical ointment: Effects of fluid shear and temperature.

The physical stability of a prototypical pharmaceutical topical ointment, consisting primarily of an emulsion of propylene glycol droplets dispersed in a continuous white petrolatum medium, was studied with regard to droplet size growth and phase separation when the ointment undergoes heating or fluid shear. To investigate the effects of shear, the ointment at 32 °C was sheared using a transparent, narrow-gap, temperature-controlled Taylor-Couette flow apparatus operated under laminar flow conditions which provided approximately uniform shear rates. Optical methods based on microscopy were used to obtain in-situ, time-dependent propylene glycol droplet size distributions, while a wide-field lens and camera were simultaneously used to detect gross phase separation as the ointment was sheared.

Micromixing visualization and quantification in a microscale multi-inlet vortex nanoprecipitation reactor using confocal-based reactive micro laser-induced fluorescence.

A technique for visualizing and quantifying reactive mixing for laminar and turbulent flow in a microscale chemical reactor using confocal-based microscopic laser induced fluorescence (confocal μ-LIF) was demonstrated in a microscale multi-inlet vortex nanoprecipitation reactor. Unlike passive scalar μ-LIF, the reactive μ-LIF technique is able to visualize and quantify micromixing effects. The confocal imaging results indicated that the flow in the reactor was laminar and steady for inlet Reynolds numbers of 10, 53, and 93.

Turbulence in a microscale planar confined impinging-jets reactor.

Confined impinging-jets reactors (CIJR) offer many advantages for rapid chemical processing at the microscale in applications such as precipitation and the production of organic nanoparticles. It has been demonstrated that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a promising tool for "experiment-free" design and scale-up of such reactors. However, validation of the CFD model used for the microscale turbulence applications requires detailed experimental data on the unsteady flow, the availability of which has until now been very limited.