Study of Transport Phenomena for Parallel Flow in Microfluidic Channels

Abstract

Summary Microfluidic two-phase flows are increasingly being used in many mass transfer applications because of the numerous advantages of operating in the microscale such as stability of the interface and low cost. Such two-phase flows have multiple applications in various fields such as medicine, metal extraction, chemistry, oil and gas, and handling of industrial effluents. It is particularly important in both the transport and extraction of substances from one fluid to another fluid. The main reasons for this are the short diffusion distances and large surface-volume ratios when using multiple chips in parallel.

Among the various flow regimes, parallel flow in the microscale is considered to be advantageous for extraction applications, especially radioisotope transfer. In this regime, the two fluids move parallel to each other in a microfluidic channel. If the fluid-fluid interface remains stable throughout, efficient transfer is possible without necessitating a step to separate the two fluids. This benefit offered by microfluidics is very important for radioisotopes with short half-lives, as the absence of a separation step ensures that radioisotopes can be transferred efficiently in a quick time, thereby maximizing their utility for different applications such as pharmaceuticals.

However, stable parallel flow is hard to achieve as it is contingent on several factors. In a microfluidic channel with two inlets, a rectangular main channel and outlets, the ideal scenario for efficient mass transfer involves a stable fluid-fluid interface to be located exactly in the middle of the rectangular channel, followed by the two fluids flowing to their respective outlets without any fluid leaking to another outlet. Considering the utility of such a regime, it is important to study the underlying flow phenomena which govern the regime and leakage. This thesis, therefore, focuses on using simulations and experiments to study parallel flow in microfluidic channels, followed by an analysis of the mass transfer when using such a regime for radioisotope extraction...