Liquid–liquid slug flow separation in a slit shaped micro device

Flow patterns of immiscible liquid-liquid flow in a rectangular microchannel with T-junction

“…The contact angle was found to influence not only the bubble length and formation, but flow pattern itself as it was shown also in [20,21]. Wetting properties of the liquids can be used to design slug flow separator of the liquids [22].…”

Utilization of milli-scale coiled flow inverter in combination with phase separator for continuous flow liquid–liquid extraction processes

“…Effective liquid-liquid slug flow separation was achieved with PTFE membrane or microdevice that selectively lets the organic phase pass through [41,54,111,112]. Also, it was achieved with wettability-based separation units with branched hydrophobic and hydrophilic outlets [55,62,105]. So far, slug flow has only been realized on a laboratory scale.…”

“…In some of these applications phase separation was also achieved in flow. Some studies were focused on the development of phase separation units for separating the aqueous and organic phases of the slug flow [41,62,111,112]. Effective liquid-liquid slug flow separation was achieved with PTFE membrane or microdevice that selectively lets the organic phase pass through [41,54,111,112].…”

“…For performing the phase separation two different units were tested. The first is a PTFE membrane separator developed by IMM which is the Institut fuer Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (meanwhile renamed as Fraunhofer-ICT Mainz) and the second is a slit shaped flow separator composed of glass and Teflon rectangular capillaries developed by Gaakeer et al [62]. Extracting efficiency of the setup was tested for the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) recommended model extraction systems of toluenewater-acetone and n-butyl acetate-water-acetone [63].…”

Separation Units and Equipment for Lab-Scale Process Development

“…However, they concluded that the extrapolation of the model is difficult for different LL systems, as the phase splitting is influenced by a number of geometrical and rheological parameters. Gaakeer et al [73] provided a slit-shaped microdevice for LL slug flow phase separation. They revealed that separation efficiencies of 99.5% can be achieved for the volumetric flow rates of 30-50 mL/min and the separator provides a small residence time.…”