Phase split of nitrogen/non-Newtonian fluid two-phase flow at a micro-T-junction

An experimental investigation has been undertaken to understand the phase split of nitrogen gas/non-Newtonian liquid two-phase flow passing through a 0.5 mm T-junction that oriented horizontally. Four different liquids, including water and aqueous solutions of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) with different mass concentrations of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 wt%, were employed. Rheology experiments showed that different from water, CMC solutions in this study are pseudoplastic non-Newtonian fluid whose viscosity decreases with increasing the shear rate. The inlet flow patterns were observed to be slug flow, slug–annular flow and annular flow. The fraction of liquid taken off at the side arm for nitrogen gas/non-Newtonian liquid systems is found to be higher than that for nitrogen gas/Newtonian liquid systems in all inlet flow patterns. In addition, with increasing the pseudoplasticity of the liquid phase, the side arm liquid taken off increases, but the increasing degree varies with each flow pattern. For annular flow, the increasing degree is much greater than those for slug and slug–annular flows.