Size Tunable Fabrication of Magnetic Alginate Microparticles Using Flow Focusing Microfluidics

The size tunable formulation of magnetic alginate microparticles (MAMs) using a 3D flow-focusing microfluidic device is reported. The droplet phase consists of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) in an alginate solution and the continuous phase consists of fluorocarbon oils. The stability of IONP colloids in alginate and calcium ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid solutions using optical microscopy, dynamic light scattering, and zeta potential measurements is studied. These studies suggest that IONPs coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) are most stable. MAMs using the PEG-coated IONP colloid are then formulated and it is studied how MAM the average size and coefficient of variance vary as a function of droplet and continuous phase flow rates and viscosities. Droplet and MAM size decrease when the carrier flow rate or viscosity increases, and droplet and MAM size increase when droplet flow rate or viscosity increases. Crosslinking and drying of droplets result in MAMs whose diameter is ≈44% less than the original droplets while maintaining a population coefficient of variance below 8%. Conditions are identified that enable fabrication of MAMs with diameters between 30 and 60 µm with coefficients of variance of ≈6–7%. These results may guide future work exploring the role of MAM size on various applications.     

腔增强拉曼技术下的过饱和硫酸镁液滴蒸发动力学初探(英文)

本文通过单光束梯度力光学镊子-拉曼光谱系统,对硫酸镁单液滴随着相对湿度变化的反应进行了探究。当硫酸镁单液滴被光镊捕获之后,通过相对湿度的梯度变化探究了捕获液滴的蒸发动力学变化。发生在与耳语回音模相称波长的受激拉曼散射可以用来准确地确定液滴半径,因此,可以通过腔增强拉曼散射得到在不同湿度下处于平衡的液滴半径信息。本研究通过光镊对硫酸镁单液滴的实时监测,阐述了在某个相对湿度范围内该液滴的粒径变化的过程和结果,在此之前的硫酸镁吸湿性研究中没有先例。研究结果表明在相对湿度逐渐降低至40%的过程中硫酸镁液滴半径的变化速率逐渐变小。而当相对湿度低于40%时,液滴半径的减小会被严重抑制。这种现象表示在高浓度条件下硫酸镁液滴中水的蒸发扩散速率会降低。另一方面,在蒸发过程后的相对湿度上升过程中,硫酸镁液滴尺寸的增加明显缓慢于湿度增长速度。这一现象显示液滴的尺寸变化是不可逆的。说明胶态的形成导致了传质受阻,从而阻碍了液滴中水分子的交换。     

Emulsion droplet sizing using low-field NMR with chemical shift resolution and the block gradient pulse method

Pulsed Field Gradient (PFG) measurements are commonly used to determine emulsion droplet size distributions based on restricted self-diffusion within the emulsion droplets. Such measurement capability is readily available on commercial NMR bench-top apparatus. A significant limitation is the requirement to selectively detect signal from the liquid phase within the emulsion droplets; this is currently achieved using either relaxation or self-diffusion contrast. Here we demonstrate the use of a 1.1 T bench-top NMR magnet, which when coupled with an rf micro-coil, is able to provide sufficient chemical shift resolution such that unambiguous signal selection is achieved from the dispersed droplet phase. We also improve the accuracy of the numerical inversion process required to produce the emulsion droplet size distribution, by employing the Block Gradient Pulse (bgp) method, which partially relaxes the assumptions of a Gaussian phase distribution or infinitely short gradient pulse application inherent in current application. The techniques are successfully applied to size 3 different emulsions.     

Electrohydrodynamic behaviors of droplet under a uniform direct current electric field

The electrohydrodynamic behaviors and evolution processes of silicone oil droplet in castor oil under uniform direct current(DC)electric field are visually observed based on a high-speed microscopic platform.Subsequently,the effects of different working conditions,such as electric field strength,droplet size,etc.,on droplet behaviors are roundly discussed.It can be found that there are four droplet behavior modes,including Taylor deformation,typical oblique rotation,periodic oscillation,and fracture,which change with the increase of electric field strength.It is also demonstrated that the degree of flat ellipse deformation gets larger under a stronger electric field.Moreover,both of the stronger electric field and smaller droplet size lead to an increase in the rotation angle of the droplet.     

Characterization of Y<Subscript>2</Subscript>BaCuO<Subscript>5</Subscript> nanoparticles synthesized by nano-emulsion method

Nanoscale yttrium–barium–copper oxide (Y₂BaCuO₅, Y211) particles were synthesized using the emulsion method and the solution method. The basic water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion system consisted of n-octane (continuous oil phase), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (cationic surfactant), butanol (cosurfactant) and water. The composition of the emulsion system was varied and characterized by measuring the conductivity of the solutions and droplet size. The droplet size of emulsion was determined by using the dynamic light scattering method. The water content, cosurfactant content, and surfactant/n-octane ratio affected the droplet size which was in the range of 3–8 nm, and hence the w/o emulsion system was referred to as a nano-emulsion system. A model was used to verify the droplet size. The influence of salt (Y₂(NO₃)₃) content on the droplet size was investigated and the addition of salt reduced the droplet size. The effects of reaction time and temperature on the Y211 particle sizes were also investigated. The particles were characterized using the TEM, SEM, and XRD. Nanoparticles produced by the nano-emulsion method were calcined at 850°C to form the Y211 phase as compared to solid state processing temperature of 1050°C. Based on the TEM analysis, the average diameter of the Y211 particles produced using the nano-emulsion method was in the range of 30–100 nm. The effect of adding 15% Y211 nanoparticles to the superconductor YBCO-123 as flux pinning centers, was investigated, and the transition temperature was reduced by 3 K.     

The Coulomb instability of charged microdroplets: dynamics and scaling

The stability and disintegration dynamics of evaporating highly charged liquid droplets from ethylene glycol and glycerol is investigated by ultrafast microscopy and analyzed as a function of temperature and droplet size. In the moment of instability the droplets have deformed to elongated spindle like shapes from which pairs of opposite jets of highly charged liquid are emitted. The thickness of the jets and the shape of the deformed droplet are remarkably insensitive to the size and viscosity of the unstable droplet, while the speed of disintegration is found to scale with a power law for both variables, the exponent being close to 3/2.     

Direct numerical simulations of autoignition in turbulent two-phase flows

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) were carried out to investigate the impact of evaporation of droplets on the autoignition process under decaying turbulence. The droplets were taken as point sources and were tracked in a Lagrangian manner. Three cases with the same initial equivalence ratio but different initial droplet size were simulated and the focus was to examine the influence of the droplet evaporation process on the location of autoignition. It was found that an increase in the initial droplet size results in an increase in the autoignition time, that highest reaction rates always occur at a specific mixture fraction ξ_MR, as in purely gaseous flows, and that changes in the initial droplet size did not affect the value of ξ_MR. The conditional correlation coefficient between scalar dissipation rate and reaction rates was only mildly negative, contrary to the strongly negative values for purely gaseous autoigniting flows, possibly due to the continuous generation of mixture fraction by the droplet evaporation process that randomizes both the mixture fraction and the scalar dissipation fields.     

Droplet formation by rapid expansion of a liquid

Molecular dynamics of two- and three-dimensional liquids undergoing a homogeneous adiabatic expansion provides a direct numerical simulation of the atomization process. The Lennard-Jones potential is used with different force cutoff distances; the cluster distributions do not depend strongly on the cutoff parameter. Expansion rates, scaled by the natural molecular time unit (about a picosecond), are investigated from unity down to 0.01; over this range the mean droplet size follows the scaling behavior of an energy balance model which minimizes the sum of kinetic plus surface energy. A second model which equates the elastic stored energy to the surface energy gives better agreement with the simulation results. The simulation results indicate that both the mean and the maximum droplet size have a power-law dependence upon the expansion rate; the exponents are -2d/3 (mean) and -d/2 (maximum), where d is the dimensionality. The mean does not show a dependence upon the system size, whereas the maximum does increase with system size, and furthermore, its exponent increases with an increase in the force cutoff distance. A mean droplet size of 2.8/eta(2), where eta is the expansion rate, describes our high-density three-dimensional simulation results, and this relation is also close to experimental results from the free-jet expansion of liquid helium. Thus, one relation spans a cluster size range from one atom to over 40 million atoms. The structure and temperature of the atomic clusters are described.     

高速数字全息测量乙醇喷雾火焰中液滴三维位置、粒径及蒸发率

喷雾蒸发燃烧的研究对指导发动机燃烧系统设计具有重要意义。本文搭建了高速数字全息系统,在线测量乙醇喷雾火焰中液滴的粒径、三维位置、速度及蒸发率。对喷雾火焰中的液滴进行了统计分析,得到液滴粒径及三维空间分布。燃烧喷雾场液滴的平均粒径为68μm;非燃烧火焰测试区液滴数量多且较密集,燃烧火焰测试区液滴数量少且稀疏.追踪单液滴并处理得到湍流火焰中液滴的运动轨迹及速度。通过研究粒径的平方D2随停留时间ts的变化,测得液滴平均蒸发率为-3.343×10-7 m2/s.     

Ultrasound assisted preparation of water in oil emulsions and their application in arsenic (V) removal from water in an emulsion liquid membrane process

Water in oil emulsions are prepared by using an ultra-sonication device and used in an emulsion liquid membrane process in order to recover arsenic (V) ions from an aqueous medium. The aim of this work is the investigation of the effect of emulsifier concentration and composition, and also sonication time on the emulsion droplet size and the extraction efficiency in order to obtain stable emulsions with small droplets that favor the extraction. Results show that ultrasonic waves reduce internal droplet size which enhances the extraction of arsenic. In addition, internal droplet size is decreased initially and then increased by increasing Span 80 concentration. On the other hand, by increasing Span 80 concentration, extraction amount is increased and then decreased. Furthermore, emulsifier blends provide more stability for the emulsion. Increasing concentration of Tween 20 as a hydrophilic emulsifier up to an optimum concentration decreases internal droplet size and increases extraction amount. By increasing sonication time up to 4 min, the internal droplet size is decreased and the extraction amount is increased. If sonication time is increased further, the internal droplet size is increased and the extraction amount is decreased.     

Droplet size and velocity distributions for spray modelling

Methods for constructing droplet size distributions and droplet velocity profiles are examined as a basis for the Eulerian spray model proposed in Beck and Watkins (2002,2003) [5], [6]. Within the spray model, both distributions must be calculated at every control volume at every time-step where the spray is present and valid distributions must be guaranteed. Results show that the Maximum Entropy formalism combined with the Gamma distribution satisfy these conditions for the droplet size distributions. Approximating the droplet velocity profile is shown to be considerably more difficult due to the fact that it does not have compact support. An exponential model with a constrained exponent offers plausible profiles.     

A molecular dynamics study of fuel droplet evaporation in sub- and supercritical conditions

Evaporation processes of a fuel droplet under sub- and supercritical ambient conditions have been studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Suspended n-dodecane droplets of various initial diameters evaporating into a nitrogen environment are considered. Both ambient pressure and temperature are varied from sub- to supercritical values, crossing the critical condition of the chosen fuel. Temporal variation in the droplet diameter is obtained and the droplet lifetime is recorded. The time at which supercritical transition happens is determined by calculating the temperature and concentration distributions of the system and comparing with the critical mixing point of the n-dodecane/nitrogen binary system. The dependence of evaporation characteristics on ambient conditions and droplet size is quantified. It is found that the droplet lifetime decreases with increasing ambient pressure and/or temperature. Supercritical transition time decreases with increasing ambient pressure and temperature as well. The droplet heat-up time as well as subcritical to supercritical transition time increases linearly with the initial droplet size d₀, while the droplet lifetime increases linearly with ${\mathrm{d}}_0^2$. A regime diagram is obtained, which indicates the subcritical and supercritical regions as a function of ambient temperature and pressure as well as the initial droplet size.     

Peculiarities of heat transfer in water droplets with a solid inclusion during heating in a high-temperature gas medium

A physical model and a mathematical model of heat transfer in the conditions of inhomogeneous (with a solid inclusion—a carbon particle) liquid droplet evaporation while moving through high-temperature (800–1500 K) gases are formulated. Numerical investigations were performed using, as an example, a spherical inhomogeneous water droplet during heating in the air medium. The most probable mechanism of phase transitions in a water–carbon particle–heated air system is considered (the initial droplet size, radius, varied in the range from 0.5 mm to 1.5 mm, the inclusion radius was 0.1–1 mm). It has been found that in certain conditions, besides water evaporation from the outer (free) droplet surface, intensive vaporization is possible at the liquid–solid inclusion interface. Conditions of realization of these phase transitions in inhomogeneous water droplet–high-temperature gas medium systems are identified.     

Polydisperse spray diffusion flames in oscillating flow

The phenomenon of droplet clustering or grouping found when a spray of droplets is moving in an oscillating host flow field is investigated for the case of a polydisperse spray that fuels a laminar co-flow diffusion flame. A mathematical solution is developed for the liquid phase based on use of small Stokes numbers for size sections into which the polydisperse spray size distribution is divided. Droplet clustering in the oscillatory flow field is accounted for by constructing a special model for the sectional vaporization Damkohler numbers in accordance with droplet size. Combining this with a formal solution for a gas phase Schvab-Zel'dovich variable yields the means whereby flame dynamics can be described. Results calculated from this solution demonstrate that preferential droplet size behaviour (with smaller droplets tending to cluster to a greater extent and reduce the vaporization Damkohler number more than larger ones) can have a major impact on the flame dynamics through local droplet enrichment with attendant consequences on the production of fuel vapour. The dynamics of the sort of flame (over- or under-ventilated) and the occurrence of flame pinching leading to multiple flame sheets are altered under these circumstances. However, potential control of the actual initial spray polydispersity may reduce the intensity of such effects.     

基于机器视觉的细水雾液滴尺寸测量与分析

为了满足科研与工程中对细水雾液滴尺寸测量的高精度低成本要求,对雾滴尺寸的机器视觉测量方法进行了深入研究.在自行建立的高压喷雾系统与雾滴采集装置上对细水雾液滴进行了采样,用显微镜及其CCD相机对雾滴样本进行了图像采集,用图像处理软件对采集的雾滴图像进行了处理与分析,测量并统计了5966个雾滴,得到了雾滴尺寸的频谱分布和累积分布以及雾滴平均直径和特征直径,将测量结果与相位多普勒粒子分析仪(PDPA)的测量结果进行了比较.结果表明,机器视觉方法町测量的最小雾滴直径约4.39 μm;机器视觉测量结果与PDPA测最结果相当接近,两种方法测得的细水雾液滴平均直径和特征直径的相对误差均在5%以内,雾滴尺寸均匀度指数的相对误差为0.27%.     

Ultrasonic atomization: effect of liquid phase properties

Experiments have been conducted to understand the mechanism by which the ultrasonic vibration at the gas liquid interface causes the atomization of liquid. For this purpose, aqueous solutions having different viscosities and liquids showing Newtonian (aqueous solution of glycerin) and non-Newtonian behavior (aqueous solution of sodium salt of carboxy methyl cellulose) were employed. It has been found that the average droplet size produced by the pseudo-plastic liquid is less than that produced by the viscous Newtonian liquid having viscosity equal to zero-shear rate viscosity of the shear thinning liquid. The droplet size was found to increase initially with an increase in the viscosity up to a certain threshold viscosity after which the droplet size was found to decrease again. Also droplet size distribution is found to be more compact (uniform sizes) with an increasing viscosity of the atomizing liquid. The presence of the cavitation and its effect on the atomization has been semi quantitatively confirmed using energy balance and by the measurement of the droplet ejection velocities and validated on the basis of the decomposition of the aqueous KI solution. A correlation has been proposed for the prediction of droplet size for aqueous Newtonian fluids and fluids showing non-Newtonian behavior based on the dimensionless numbers incorporating the operating parameters of the ultrasonic atomizer and the liquid phase physico-chemical properties.     

Droplets breakup via a splitting microchannel

On the basis of a volume of fluid(VOF) liquid/liquid interface tracking method, we apply a two-dimensional model to investigate the dynamic behaviors of droplet breakup through a splitting microchannel. The feasibility and applicability of the theoretical model are experimentally validated. Four flow regimes are observed in the splitting microchannel, that is, breakup with permanent obstruction, breakup with temporary obstruction, breakup with tunnels, and non-breakup. The results indicate that the increase of the capillary number Ca provides considerable upstream pressure to accelerate the droplet deformation, which is favorable for the droplet breakup. The decrease of the droplet size contributes to its shape changing from the plug to the sphere, which results in weakening droplet deformation ability and generating the nonbreakup flow regime.     

Response surface methodology for optimization of cinnamon essential oil nanoemulsion with improved stability and antifungal activity

The optimum formulation and ultrasonic condition for fabrication of cinnamon essential oil (CEO) nanoemulsion were determined using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The CEO nanoemulsions were formed using an ultrasonic bath (43 kHz at power output of 210 W) and an ultrasonic probe (24 kHz at power of 400 W). Probe ultrasonication outperformed bath ultrasonication since it produced nanoemulsions with smaller droplet size, narrower size distribution as measured using polydispersity index (PDI), and higher viscosity. The influences of sonication time of 180.23–351.77 s, temperature of 4.82–45.18 °C, and Tween® 80 concentration of 1–3% w/w on the droplet size, PDI, and viscosity were investigated using RSM based on Box-Behnken design (BBD). The RSM revealed that the sonication time of 266 s, temperature of 4.82 °C, and Tween® 80 of 3% w/w produced the optimum CEO nanoemulsion with droplet size of 65.98 nm, PDI of 0.15, and viscosity of 1.67 mPa.s. Moreover, the optimum nanoemulsion had good stability in terms of droplet size and PDI when storing at 4, 30, and 45 °C for 90 days. The antifungal activity of the optimum CEO nanoemulsion was then investigated against Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus arrhizus, Penicillium sp., and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides in comparison to CEO coarse emulsion. The results showed that the CEO nanoemulsion had better antifungal activity than coarse emulsion of CEO.     

Stochastic modeling of atomizing spray in a complex swirl injector using large eddy simulation

Large-eddy simulation of an atomizing spray issuing from a gas-turbine injector is performed. The filtered Navier–Stokes equations with dynamic subgrid scale model are solved on unstructured grids to compute the swirling turbulent flow through complex passages of the injector. The collocated grid, incompressible flow algorithm on arbitrary shaped unstructured grids developed by Mahesh et al. (J. Comp. Phys. 197 (2004) 215–240) is used in this work. A Lagrangian point-particle formulation with a stochastic model for droplet breakup is used for the liquid phase. Following Kolmogorov’s concept of viewing solid particle-breakup as a discrete random process, the droplet breakup is considered in the framework of uncorrelated breakup events, independent of the initial droplet size. The size and number density of the newly produced droplets is governed by the Fokker–Planck equation for the evolution of the pdf of droplet radii. The parameters of the model are obtained dynamically by relating them to the local Weber number and resolved scale turbulence properties. A hybrid particle-parcel is used to represent the large number of spray droplets. The predictive capability of the LES together with Lagrangian droplet dynamics models to capture the droplet dispersion characteristics, size distributions, and the spray evolution is examined in detail by comparing it with the spray patternation study for the gas-turbine injector. The present approach is computationally efficient and captures the global features of the fragmentary process of liquid atomization in complex configurations.     

Impact of process parameters in the generation of novel aspirin nanoemulsions – Comparative studies between ultrasound cavitation and microfluidizer

In the present investigation, the operating efficiency of a bench-top air-driven microfluidizer has been compared to that of a bench-top high power ultrasound horn in the production of pharmaceutical grade nanoemulsions using aspirin as a model drug. The influence of important process variables as well as the pre-homogenization and drug loading on the resultant mean droplet diameter and size distribution of emulsion droplets was studied in an oil-in-water nanoemulsion incorporated with a model drug aspirin. Results obtained show that both the emulsification methods were capable of producing very fine nanoemulsions containing aspirin with the minimum droplet size ranging from 150 to 170 nm. In case of using the microfluidizer, it has been observed that the size of the emulsion droplets obtained was almost independent of the applied microfluidization pressure (200–600 bar) and the number of passes (up to 10 passes) while the pre-homogenization and drug loading had a marginal effect in increasing the droplet size. Whereas, in the case of ultrasound emulsification, the droplet size was generally decreased with an increase in sonication amplitude (50–70%) and period of sonication but the resultant emulsion was found to be dependent on the pre-homogenization and drug loading. The STEM microscopic observations illustrated that the optimized formulations obtained using ultrasound cavitation technique are comparable to microfluidized emulsions. These comparative results demonstrated that ultrasound cavitation is a relatively energy-efficient yet promising method of pharmaceutical nanoemulsions as compared to microfluidizer although the means used to generate the nanoemulsions are different.