Chemical hydrodynamic focusing

Fig. 6 (a) Schematic illustration of a flow cytometer used in a suspension array. The sample microspheres are hydrodynamically focused in a fluidic system and read-out by two laser beams. Laser 1 excites the encoding dyes and the fluorescence is detected at two wavelengths. Laser 2 is used to quantify the analyte, (b) Scheme of randomly ordered bead array concept. Beads are pooled and adsorbed into the etched wells of an optical fiber, (c) Scheme of randomly-ordered sedimentation array. A set of encoded microspheres is added to the analyte solution. Subsequent to binding of the analyte, microparticles sediment and assemble at the transparent bottom of a sample tube generating a randomly ordered array. This array is evaluated by microscope optics and a CCD-camera. Reproduced with permission from Refs. [85] and [101]. Copyright 1999, 2008 American Chemical Society... 

The laminar flow restriction and small dimensions of microfluidic devices have been exploited to expose different portions of a single cell to different chemical environments. A method developed by Whitesides and coworkers utilized hydrodynamic focusing on a microfluidic platform to selectively label portions of a cell with different dyes (Figure 32.15). Laminar fluid flow confined the dye solution to particular regions of the channel despite being in contact with streams containing... 

Takayama, S., Ostuni, E., LeDuc, R, Naruse, K., Ingber, D. E., and Whitesides, G. M., Selective chemical treatment of cellular microdomains using multiple laminar streams, ChemBiol, 10,123,2003. Spielman, L. and Goren, S. L., Improving resolution in Coulter counting by hydrodynamic focusing,... 

A. Jahn, W. Vreeland, M. Gaitan, and L. Locascio, Controlled vesicle self-assembly in microfluidic channels with hydrodynamic focusing, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 126, 2674-2675, 2004. 

It is seen that mixing time scales linearly with the Peclet number. However, the mixing time is decreased dramatically since W[ /. For D = 10 m /s (typical of small molecules or ions) and Wf = 100 nm, the mixing time is only 10 ps. This mixer is a very effective tool for rapidly changing the chemical environment of species in the central focused stream at the same time consuming a smaller sample volume due to the low flow rate of the inlet stream. Hydrodynamic focusing mixers find applications in the study of fast kinetics such as protein folding. 

Influence of Chemical Reactions on Uq and When a chemical reaction occurs, the transfer rate may be influenced by the chemical reac tion as well as by the purely physical processes of diffusion and convection within the two phases. Since this situation is common in gas absorption, gas absorption will be the focus of this discussion. One must consider the impacts of chemical equilibrium and reac tion kinetics on the absorption rate in addition to accounting for the effec ts of gas solubility, diffusivity, and system hydrodynamics. 

Miniaturisation of various devices and systems has become a popular trend in many areas of modern nanotechnology such as microelectronics, optics, etc. In particular, this is very important in creating chemical or electrochemical sensors where the amount of sample required for the analysis is a critical parameter and must be minimized. In this work we will focus on a micrometric channel flow system. We will call such miniaturised flow cells microfluidic systems , i.e. cells with one or more dimensions being of the order of a few microns. Such microfluidic channels have kinetic and analytical properties which can be finely tuned as a function of the hydrodynamic flow. However, presently, there is no simple and direct method to monitor the corresponding flows in. situ. 

The solid-liquid two-phase flow is widely applied in modern industry, such as chemical-mechanical polish (CMP), chemical engineering, medical engineering, bioengineering, and so on [80,81]. Many research works have been made focusing on the heat transfer or transportation of particles in the micro scale [82-88], In many applications, e.g., in CMP process of computer chips and computer hard disk, the size of solid particles in the two-phase flow becomes down to tens of nanometres from the micrometer scale, and a study on two-phase flow containing nano-particles is a new area apart from the classic hydrodynamics and traditional two-phase flow research. In such an area, the forces between particles and liquid are in micro or even to nano-Newton scale, which is far away from that in the traditional solid-liquid two-phase flow. 

For this purpose, cylindrical channels have been assumed. In randomly packed fixed beds the porosity is about 0.4, from which the relationship dp = 2.25 d is obtained. Since the focus is on heterogeneously catalyzed gas-phase reactions, it is important to not only ensure comparable conditions from a hydrodynamic point of view, but also as far as chemical reaction kinetics is concerned. Therefore, it is assumed that both reactors contain the same amount of catalyst. 

A further option is to forget about simulating the flow and the processes in the whole vessel and to zoom into local processes by carrying out a DNS for a small box. The idea is to focus on the flow and transport phenomena within such a small box, such as mass transport and chemical reactions in or around a few eddies or bubbles, or the hydrodynamic interaction of a limited number of bubbles, drops, and particles including their readiness to collisions and coalescence. Examples of such detailed studies by means of DNS are due to Ten Cate et al. (2004) and Derksen (2006b). 

In this group of disperse systems we will focus on particles, which could be solid, liquid or gaseous, dispersed in a liquid medium. The particle size may be a few nanometres up to a few micrometres. Above this size the chemical nature of the particles rapidly becomes unimportant and the hydrodynamic interactions, particle shape and geometry dominate the flow. This is also our starting point for particles within the colloidal domain although we will see that interparticle forces are of great importance. 

After the proteins are focused in the capillary, the isoforms are mobilized past the detector for UV detection. The mobilization step utilizes either hydrodynamic pressure or chemical means. Chemical mobilization can be performed using either ionic or zwitterionic compounds. The general consensus is that hydrodynamic mobilization results in reduced resolution. Bio-Rad (Hercules, CA) zwitterion cathodic mobilizer with chemical mobilization provides superior resolution (Figure 21). 

Basically, using these technologies one would like to move forward to the theoretical optimum of a chemical process, which is that there are no other limitations than chemical kinetics. Normally a chemical process is influenced by more than just kinetics hydrodynamics (mixing), heat transfer, and mass transfer determine the quality of the process. Process intensification focuses on removing these three limitations to reaching the goal of kinetically limited processes. This is schematically depicted in Figure 2. 

Abstract Unsteady liquid flow and chemical reaction characterize hydrodynamic dispersion in soils and other porous materials and flow equations are complicated by the need to account for advection of the solute with the water, and competitive adsorption of solute components. Advection of the water and adsorbed species with the solid phase in swelling systems is an additional complication. Computers facilitate solution of these equations but it is often physically more revealing when we discriminate between flow of the solute with and relative to, the water and the flow of solution with and relative to, the solid phase. Spacelike coordinates that satisfy material balance of the water, or of the solid, achieve this separation. Advection terms are implicit in the space-like coordinate and the flow equations are focused on solute movement relative to the water and water relative to soil solid. This paper illustrates some of these issues. 

The performance of a membrane process is a function of the intrinsic properties of the membrane, the imposed operating and hydrodynamic conditions, and the namre of the feed. This chapter describes methods available to enhance performance by various techniques, mainly hydrodynamic but also chemical and physical. The focus is on the liquid-based membrane processes where performance is characterized by attainable flux, fouling control, and separation capabilities. The techniques discussed include secondary flows, flow channel spacers, pulsed flow, two-phase flow, high shear devices, electromagnetic effects, and ultrasound. 

---