Hydrodynamic cavitation on high resistant microfluidic chips

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2486353 _ (Table of Contents)

Cavitation is one of the phase change phenomena, which occurs as a result of a sharp static pressure drop in a fluidic system. The required pressure drop could be obtained either by acoustic wave propagation, known as acoustic cavitation, or by hydrodynamic pressure drop, known as hydrodynamic cavitation. There are different parameters affecting flow patterns in hydrodynamic cavitation such as geometry of the flow path, thermophysical properties of the working fluid, and roughness elements. In this thesis, high pressure resistive microfluidic devices are fabricated and tested at high inlet pressures. The flow behavior is characterized using cavitation number, Reynolds number, and cavitation flowrate. Different working fluids such as ethanol, PBS, and PFC5 droplets suspension in water are used and the performances of the devices are compared with the case of water. The effect of different lateral wall roughness elements on the flow pattern is studied and the general geometry of the devices is optimized. In addition, applications of hydrodynamic cavitation are considered. The energy harvesting application of hydrodynamic cavitation is implemented and the amount of the possible power generation of the microfluidic devices in the case of coupling with μ−TEGs is analytically investigated. Finally, the bacteria removal performances of the microfluidic devices are assessed. The advantages of the designed and fabricated microfluidic devices are presented and explored as well