Seed bubbles trigger boiling heat transfer in silicon microchannels

The smooth channel surface of microsystems delays boiling incipience in heated microchannels. In this paper, we use seed bubbles to trigger boiling heat transfer and control thermal non-equilibrium of liquid and vapor phases in parallel microchannels. The test section consisted of a top glass cover and a silicon substrate. Microheater array was integrated at the top glass cover surface and driven by a pulse voltage signal to generate seed bubbles in time sequence. Each microheater corresponds to a specific microchannel and is located in the microchannel upstream. Five triangular microchannels with a hydraulic diameter of 100 μm and a length of 12.0 mm were etched in the silicon substrate. A thin platinum film was deposited at the back surface of silicon chip with an effective heating area of 4,500 × 1,366 μm, acting as the main heater for the heat transfer system. Acetone liquid was used. With the data range reported here, boiling incipience was not initiated if wall superheats are smaller than 15°C without seed bubbles assisted. Injection seed bubbles triggers boiling incipience and controls thermal non-equilibrium between liquid and vapor phases successfully. Four modes of flow and heat transfer are identified. Modes 1, 2, and 4 are the stable ones without apparent oscillations of pressure drops and heating surface temperatures, and mode 3 displays flow instabilities with apparent amplitudes and long periods of these parameters. The four modes are divided based on the four types of flow patterns observed in microchannels. Seed bubble frequency is a key factor to influence the heat transfer. The higher the seed bubble frequency, the more decreased non-equilibrium between two phases and heating surface temperatures are. The seed bubble frequency can reach a saturation value, at which heat transfer enhancement attains the maximum degree, inferring that a complete thermal equilibrium of two phases is approached. The saturation frequency is about a couple of thousand Hertz in this study.     

Evaporation in microchannels: influence of the channel diameter on heat transfer

This paper discusses the effect of diameter on both flow boiling heat transfer and transition from macro to microchannel evaporation. A recently proposed three-zone flow boiling model based on evaporation of elongated bubbles in microchannels is briefly described and used for the present analysis. In the microscale range, the model predicts an increase in the two-phase heat transfer coefficient with a decrease of diameter for low values of vapor quality and a decrease of the heat transfer coefficient for larger values of vapor quality. This behavior is explained by the influence of the liquid film thickness, deposited periodically behind passing liquid slugs.     

Numerical Simulation of growth and collapse of a bubble induced by a pulsed microheater

A three-dimensional numerical analysis of the growth and collapse of a bubble on a microheater is presented. SIMULENT code, which solves the full Navier-Stokes equations with surface tension effects, is used in these simulations. A volume of fluid (VOF) interface tracking algorithm is used to track the evolution of the free surface flow. A one-dimensional heat conduction model is used to consider the energy transfer between the bubble and the surrounding liquid, as well as the temperature distribution in the liquid layer. Details of the velocity and pressure distribution in the liquid during the growth and collapse of the vapor bubble are obtained. Numerical results for the growth and the collapse of the bubbles are compared with those of experiments under similar conditions. Comparisons show that the volume evolution of the vapor bubble is well predicted by the numerical model.     

The effect of gold nanoparticles on the spreading of triple line

The work reports a unique phenomenon of gold nanoparticles on the formation of gas bubbles. The well-defined gold nanofluids prevent the spreading of triple line during bubble formation, i.e. the triple line is pinned somewhere around the middle of the tube wall during the rapid bubble formation stage whereas it spreads to the outer edge of the tube for pure liquid. Compared with pure liquid, adding nanoparticles raises bubble frequency and reduces departure bubble volume. Different to other observations of bubble dynamics in nanofluids under evaporation or boiling conditions, which are caused by the surface modification due to particle sedimentation, this work reveals an inherent feature of enhanced pinning of triple lines for well-defined nanofluids, which bears extensive implications to a number of nanoparticle-associated interfacial phenomena.     

Thin film evaporation in microchannels with interfacial slip

We investigate the role of interfacial slip on evaporation of a thin liquid film in a microfluidic channel. The effective slip mechanism is attributed to the formation of a depleted layer adhering to the substrate–fluid interface, either in a continuum or in a rarefied gas regime, as a consequence of intricate hydrophobic interactions in the narrow confinement. We appeal to the fundamental principles of conservation in relating the evaporation mechanisms with fluid flow and heat transfer over interfacial scales. We obtain semi-analytical solutions of the pertinent governing equations, with coupled heat and mass transfer boundary conditions at the liquid–vapor interface. We observe that a general consequence of interfacial slip is to elongate the liquid film, thereby leading to a film thickening effect. Thicker liquid films, in turn, result in lower heat transfer rates from the wall to liquid film, and consequently lower mass transfer rates from the liquid film to the vapor phase. Nevertheless, the total mass of evaporation (or equivalently, the net heat transfer) turns out to be higher in case of interfacial slip due to the longer film length. We also develop significant physical insights on the implications of the relative thickness of the depleted layer with reference to characteristic length scales of the microfluidic channel on the evaporation process, under combined influences of the capillary pressure, disjoining pressure, and the driving temperature differential for the interfacial transport.     

Gas�Cliquid flow stability and bubble formation in non-Newtonian fluids in microfluidic flow-focusing devices

This communication describes the gas–liquid two-phase flow patterns and the formation of bubbles in non-Newtonian fluids in microfluidic flow-focusing devices. Experiments were conducted in two different polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) square microchannels of, respectively, 600 × 600 and 400 × 400 μm. N₂ bubbles were generated in non-Newtonian polyacrylamide (PAAm) solutions of different concentrations. Slug bubble, missile bubble, annular and intermittent flow patterns were observed at the cross-junction by varying gas and liquid flow rates. Gas and liquid flow rates, concentration of PAAm solutions, and channel size were varied to investigate their effect on the mechanism of bubble formation. The bubble size was proportional to the ratio of gas/liquid flow rate for slug bubbles and could be scaled with the ratio of gas/liquid flow rate as a power–law relationship for missile bubbles under wide experimental conditions.     

Efficient transfer and concentration of energy between explosive dual bubbles via time-delayed interactions

The dynamics of a high heat flux thermal bubble is constrained by the thermal energy carried on the bubble surface right after the bubble formation because of thermal isolation of vapor. This article proposes a way by assigning time delays between dual bubbles to transfer effectively energy from one bubble into the other, thus, breaks energy limitation that one single bubble can usually carry. Experiment result has demonstrated that the useful work as large as 40% can be transferred from one bubble into the other for the ignition time delay set between 2 and 3 μs in a dual bubble system. At the same time, the total extractable useful work in a dual bubble system is 20% higher than twice that of a single-bubble system with the same input heat energy. This phenomenon opens up a new way to transfer or concentrate energies from distributed energy sources with limit energy density into a much higher one for higher power application.     

Experimental and computational study of gas bubble removal in a microfluidic system using nanofibrous membranes

This paper presents a simple and efficient method for removing gas bubbles from a microfluidic system. This bubble removal system uses a T-junction configuration to generate gas bubbles within a water-filled microchannel. The generated bubbles are then transported to a bubble removal region and vented through a hydrophobic nanofibrous membrane. Four different hydrophobic Polytetrafluorethylene membranes with different pore sizes ranging from 0.45 to 3 μm are tested to study the effect of membrane structure on the system performance. The fluidic channel width is 500 μm and channel height ranges from 100 to 300 μm. Additionally, a 3D computational fluid dynamics model is developed to simulate the bubble generation and its removal from a microfluidic system. Computational results are found to be in a good agreement with the experimental data. The effects of various geometrical and flow parameters on bubble removal capability of the system are studied. Furthermore, gas–liquid two-phase flow behaviors for both the complete and partial bubble removal cases are thoroughly investigated. The results indicate that the gas bubble removal rate increases with increasing the pore size and channel height but decreases with increasing the liquid flow rate.

     

Heat and Fluid Flow in an Optical Switch Bubble

The Agilent all-optical bubble switch uses bubbles in an organic fluid index matched to a silica planar lightwave circuit. The bubble is created and sustained by heaters that are deposited on an attached silicon substrate. Testing of the bubble shows how heater power and ambient pressure affect bubble shape, size, and optical reflection characteristics. Heat and fluid flow in the bubble were modeled in 2D and 3D using the homogeneous bubble model in the Flow3D modeling software. Fluid condensing on the trench wall causes a dimple on the bubble and hence nonoptimum optical reflection. To aid understanding, the bubble, silica walls, and heaters were also modeled as a thermal resistance network. Because the pressure drop across the bubble wall is fixed, the bubble size is determined by P_res/DeltaT_t , where P_res is the heater power and DeltaT_t is the temperature difference between the bubble and the substrate. Heating the trench walls beyond the bubble temperature with heaters located underneath the trench wall will dry out the trench wall and give a stable optical reflection. As DeltaT_t approaches zero, a bubble is sustained without any heater power and with zero fluid flow. This "static" bubble provides for a very stable optical reflection     

Bubble coalescence at a microfluidic T-junction convergence: from colliding to squeezing

This paper aims at studying the coalescence of bubbles at a microfluidic T-junction convergence by using a high-speed digital camera and the VOF simulation. The microfluidic channels have uniform square cross-section with 400 μm wide and 400 μm deep. The responses of bubble collisions at the T-junction convergence have been investigated within a wide range of dimensionless bubble size and capillary number Ca. Colliding coalescence, squeezing coalescence, and non-coalescence were observed at the junction. The result showed that whatever for colliding coalescence or squeezing coalescence, the coalescence efficiency decreases with the increase in the two-phase superficial velocity for moderate liquid viscosities, and the transition from colliding to squeezing coalescence due to the increase in the two-phase superficial velocity enhances the coalescence of bubbles. The decrease in the bubble size for moderate liquid viscosities and the increase in the liquid viscosity are not conducive to bubble coalescence.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of fluid containing gas in hydrophilic rough wall nanochannels

This study performed the molecular dynamic simulations to investigate the boundary behavior of liquid water with entrapped gas bubbles over various hydrophilic roughened substrates. A “liquid–gas–vapor coexistence setup” was employed to maintain a constant thermodynamic state during individual equilibrium simulations and corresponding non-equilibrium Poiseuille flow cases. The two roughened substrates (Si(100) and graphite) adopted in this study present similar contact angles and slip length with gas-free fluid. By considering the effects of argon molecules at the interface, we demonstrated that the boundary slip behavior differed dramatically between these two rough wall channels. This divergence can be attributed to differences in the morphology of argon bubble at the interface due to discrepancies in the atomic arrangement and wall–fluid interaction energy. Furthermore, the density of gas at the interface had a significant impact on the effective slip length of the roughened graphite substrate, whereas shear rate \(\dot{\gamma }\) presented no noticeable influence. On the roughened Si(100) surface, the morphology of the argon bubbles exhibited far higher meniscus curvature and unstable properties under hydrodynamic effects. Thus, this substrate exhibited no slip to slight negative slip and no remarkable influence from either the density of gas at the interface or shear rate. In the present study, we demonstrate that the morphology and behavior of interfacial gas bubbles are influenced by the parameters of wall–fluid interaction as well as the atomic arrangement of the substrate. Our results related to nanochannel flow reveal that different surfaces, such as Si(100) and graphite, may possess similar intrinsic wettability; however, properties of the interfacial gas bubbles can lead to noticeable changes in interfacial characteristics resulting in various degrees of boundary slippage.     

Evaporation-induced natural convection of a liquid slug of binary mixture inside a microchannel: effect of confinement

Both experimental and simulation studies have been carried out on internal convection of an evaporating liquid slug of aqueous NaCl solution inside a microcapillary. Effect of confinement due to the extended channel length beyond the interface of the liquid slug has been investigated by placing the liquid slug inside the microcapillary of different lengths. Micro-PIV technique has been used for measurement of velocity field inside the liquid slug. Simulation studies have been carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics software for reporting the evaporative flux distribution on the meniscus and the concentration field distribution inside the liquid slug. The combined experimental and simulation studies successfully explain the underlying flow physics. Evaporation from the liquid–air interface of the slug induces buoyancy-driven Rayleigh convection. Evaporative flux of the interface depends on the extended length of the microcapillary beyond the liquid slug. The presence of extended channel region beyond the meniscus suppresses the evaporation from the meniscus due to the absence of evaporation flux normal to the channel wall. Evaporation occurs primarily from only one meniscus when the slug is located at one end of a long channel. Evaporation occurs from both the menisci when both the menisci are directly exposed to the atmosphere. Evaporation from only one meniscus of a slug leads to one recirculation bubble inside the liquid slug, whereas evaporation from both the menisci leads to two recirculation bubbles inside the liquid slug. Liquid slug with asymmetric extended channel length beyond the liquid slug interface leads to asymmetric evaporative flux, concentration field distribution and recirculation bubble size. The extended channel length beyond an evaporating liquid slug can influence/control the performance of a digital microfluidic system/device.     

Microbubbles for optofluidics: controlled defects in bubble crystals

We use liquid–gas microfluidics as a low-cost, tunable microstructuring tool, for which applications can be envisioned in optics. In order to obtain relevant geometries for photonics, beyond simple self-assembled crystals, we propose an original approach that excludes bubbles from chosen zones thanks to tiny pillars. To assess the strength of the exclusion mechanism, we predict the behaviour of a single flattened bubble in front of a thin cylindrical pillar located in a rectangular microchannel. The model compares the hydrodynamic force F _fluid that pushes the bubble and the force F _s, due to surface tension, resulting from the surface augmentation when the bubble rises over the pillar. The resulting predictions have been confirmed by experimental results which showed that the bubble passes over the pillar if F _s < F _fluid and goes around it in other cases. Consistently with this model, dynamic bubble crystals with controlled lacuna defects of one, two, or a line of bubbles have been successfully produced. Defects can be switched on or off by changing the flow. Using a photosensitive polymer as a carrier liquid, static bubble crystals have also been produced.     

Liquid velocity distribution in slug flow in a microchannel

The liquid velocity distributions in two-phase slug flows in a nearly rectangular microchannel etched on a microfluidic chip were investigated using a three-dimensional tracking method for submicron fluorescent particles seeded in the working liquid (water). The Taylor bubbles generated from dissolved air in the water through heating the micro-fluidic chip to 35–55°C had low velocities, so they had the very small Capillary and Reynolds numbers. The change in the Taylor bubble shape with the flow conditions such as the bubble velocity and temperature was negligible in the present study. The shapes of the fully developed Taylor bubbles were determined by analyzing the interference fringes in in-line holographic images of the microchannel section containing the bubble to estimate the bubble cross-sectional area. The three-dimensional liquid velocity distribution for the two-phase slug flow was obtained using a least-squares fit of the measured tracer particle velocities to an analytic velocity distribution for Poiseuille flow in a rectangular channel to determine the mean liquid velocity and the liquid flow rate in the slug. The liquid velocity was normalized using the measured instantaneous bubble velocity to remove the influence of the slug and the bubble velocity fluctuations on the liquid velocity distribution. The results show that the mean liquid velocity through the microchannel corners is 2.3 times the bubble velocity, which is in agreement with previous observations of the maximum liquid velocity in the corners of 3.5–3.8 times the bubble velocity.     

Laser-generated liquid microjets: correlation between bubble dynamics and liquid ejection

Laser-based techniques provide excellent means for liquid microprinting, with several advantages over other more conventional printing techniques, such as being nozzle-free (as opposed to inkjet, for instance) or requiring minimal engineering of the liquid properties in the pre-printing stage. In such techniques, the transfer is usually mediated by liquid jets that contact a receiver substrate placed nearby the liquid source, leading to the deposition of a small droplet. The main cause of jetting lies in a laser-generated bubble produced inside the liquid, whose dynamics dictates the evolution of liquid ejection. However, the detailed relationship between the bubble and the jet is not completely understood, as the studies carried out so far have been mostly focused on the jetting dynamics taking place above the liquid free-surface, without access to the liquid interior and therefore to the behavior of the bubble. In this work, we analyze through time-resolved imaging the film-free laser printing of an aqueous solution by simultaneously visualizing both the bubble evolution and the liquid ejection dynamics, thus making possible the correlation between the two phenomena. We find that the pulsating behavior of the bubble leads to successive jetting events with different jet morphologies arising from the particular geometries that the bubble acquires during its evolution. Finally, we find good agreement between our results and those from studies analyzing the dynamics of cavitation bubbles near the free-surface of a liquid through numerical solution of the fluid dynamics equations.     

Impact of inlet design on mass transfer in gas–liquid rectangular microchannels

The length of the gas bubbles as well as of the liquid slugs in Taylor flow in rectangular microchannels was studied. At constant flow ratios of the gas and the liquid phase, we were able to vary the unit cell length, and therefore the gas bubble length as well as the liquid slug length by factor 4 solely by changing the inlet geometry. Based on literature and experimental data, we state a new correlation to predict the gas bubble length, the liquid slug length as well as the pressure drop for rectangular microchannels. The observed decrease in slug length for the investigated case corresponds to an increase in the Sherwood number and therefore of the mass transfer by a factor of 1.6. Short unit cell lengths, meaning enhanced mass transfer within the liquid slug and increased interfacial area, can be achieved for given flow rates using a small gas inlet channel compared to the main channel and injection in flow direction.     

Effect of operating conditions and liquid physical properties on the size of monodisperse microbubbles produced in a capillary embedded T-junction device

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of operating parameters such as liquid flow rate, gas inlet pressure, and capillary diameter as well as the influence of the physical properties of the liquid, in particular viscosity, on the generation of monodisperse microbubbles in a circular cross section T-junction device. Aqueous glycerol solutions with viscosities ranging from 1- to 100 mPa s were used in the experiments. The bubble diameter generated was studied for systematically varied combinations of gas inlet pressure, liquid flow rate, and liquid viscosity with a fixed capillary inner diameter of 150 μm for the liquid and gas inlet channels as well as the outlet channel. In addition, the effect of channel geometry on bubble size was studied using capillaries with inner diameters of first 100 and then 200 μm. In all the experiments the distance between the coaxial capillaries at the junction was set to be 200 μm. All the microbubbles produced in this study were highly monodisperse (polydispersity index <1 %) and it was found, as expected, that bubble formation and size were influenced by the ratio of liquid to gas flow rate, capillary size, and liquid viscosity. The experimental data were then compared with empirical scaling laws derived for rectangular cross-section junctions. In contrast with these previous studies, which have found bubble size to be dependent on either the flow rate ratio (the squeezing regime) or capillary number (the dripping regime), in this experimental study bubble size was found to depend on both capillary number and flow ratio.     

Use of a porous membrane for gas bubble removal in microfluidic channels: physical mechanisms and design criteria

We demonstrate and explain a simple and efficient way to remove gas bubbles from liquid-filled microchannels, by integrating a hydrophobic porous membrane on top of the microchannel. A prototype chip is manufactured in hard, transparent polymer with the ability to completely filter gas plugs out of a segmented flow at rates up to 7.4 μl/s/mm² of membrane area. The device involves a bubble generation section and a gas removal section. In the bubble generation section, a T-junction is used to generate a train of gas plugs into a water stream. These gas plugs are then transported toward the gas removal section, where they slide along a hydrophobic membrane until complete removal. The system has been successfully modeled, and four necessary operating criteria have been determined to achieve a complete separation of the gas from the liquid. The first criterion is that the bubble length needs to be larger than the channel diameter. The second criterion is that the gas plug should stay on the membrane for a time sufficient to transport all the gas through the membrane. The third criterion is that the gas plug travel speed should be lower than a critical value: otherwise a stable liquid film between the bubble and the membrane prevents mass transfer. The fourth criterion is that the pressure difference across the membrane should not be larger than the Laplace pressure to prevent water from leaking through the membrane.     

Capillary-driven pumping for passive degassing and fuel supply in direct methanol fuel cells

In this paper we present a new concept of creating and using capillary pressure gradients for passive degassing and passive methanol supply in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). An anode flow field consisting of parallel tapered channels structures is applied to achieve the passive supply mechanism. The flow is propelled by the surface forces of deformed CO₂ bubbles, generated as a reaction product during DMFC operation. This work focuses on studying the influence of channel geometry and surface properties on the capillary-induced liquid flow rates at various bubbly gas flow rates. Besides the aspect ratios and opening angles of the tapered channels, the static contact angle as well as the effect of contact angle hysteresis has been identified to significantly influence the liquid flow rates induced by capillary forces at the bubble menisci. Applying the novel concept, we show that the liquid flow rates are up to thirteen times higher than the methanol oxidation reaction on the anode requires. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate the continuous passive operation of a DMFC for more than 15 h.     

A Novel Benzocyclobutene-Based Device for Studying the Dynamics of Heat Transfer During the Nucleation Process

A novel microelectromechanical device has been developed to study the details of the heat transfer mechanisms involved at the nucleation site for the nucleate boiling process. This device enables quantifying the magnitude, time period of activation, and specific areas of influence of different mechanisms of heat transfer from the surface with a resolution several times greater than previously reported. This is achieved through the use of an array of embedded temperature sensors within a carefully designed dual-layer (silicon and benzocyclobutene) wall which allows for the accurate calculation of local heat flux, circumventing difficulties encountered when using existing methods. The sensors are radially distributed around the nucleation site. Heat is supplied to the wall by a thin film heater fabricated on the outer nonwetted surface. Single bubbles are generated at the center of the array while the temperatures and the bubble images are recorded with a sampling frequency of 8 kHz. The temperature data provided the necessary thermal boundary conditions to numerically calculate the surface heat flux with an unprecedented radial resolution of 22-40 mum. Fabrication, characterization, and the ability of the developed device to elucidate the heat transfer aspects of the nucleation process are demonstrated.