TY - GEN
T1 - Fabrication of a microchannel device with a three-dimensional pore network using a sacrificial sugar template
AU - Zhang, Haipeng
AU - Palmon, Tomer
AU - Kim, Seunghee
AU - Ryu, Sangjin
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) of American Chemical Society (ACS). TP was supported by the Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience (UCARE) program of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). We appreciate Dr. Dong Wang at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for his assist with micro-CT imaging.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Porous media compressed air energy storage (PM-CAES) is an emerging technology that stores compressed air in an underground aquifer during the off-peak periods, to mitigate the mismatch between energy supplies and demands. Thus, PM-CAES involves repeated two-phase fluid flow in porous media, and ensuring the success of PM-CAES requires a better understanding of repetitive two-phase fluid flow through porous media. For this purpose, we previously developed microfluidic channels that retain a two-dimensional (2D) pore network. Because it was found that the geometry of the pore structure significantly affects the patterns and occupational efficiencies of a non-wetting fluid during the drainage-imbibition cycles, a more realistic microfluidic model is needed to reflect the three-dimensional (3D) nature of pore structures in the underground geologic formation. In this study, we developed an easy-to-adopt method to fabricate a microfluidic device with a 3D random pore network using a sacrificial sugar template. Instead of using a master mold made in photolithography, a sacrificial mold was made using sugar grains so that the mold could be washed away after PDMS curing. First, we made sugar templates with different levels of compaction load, and found that the thickness of the templates decreased as the compaction load increased, which suggests more packing of sugar grains and thus lower porosity in the template. Second, we fabricated PDMS porous media using the sugar template as a mold, and imaged their pore structure using micro computed tomography (micro-CT). Pores within PDSM samples appeared more tightly packed as the compacting force increased. Last, we fabricated a prototype PDMS channel device with a 3D pore network using a sugar template, and visualized flow through the pore network using colored water. The flow visualization result shows that the water was guided by the random pores and that the resultant flow pattern was three dimensional.
AB - Porous media compressed air energy storage (PM-CAES) is an emerging technology that stores compressed air in an underground aquifer during the off-peak periods, to mitigate the mismatch between energy supplies and demands. Thus, PM-CAES involves repeated two-phase fluid flow in porous media, and ensuring the success of PM-CAES requires a better understanding of repetitive two-phase fluid flow through porous media. For this purpose, we previously developed microfluidic channels that retain a two-dimensional (2D) pore network. Because it was found that the geometry of the pore structure significantly affects the patterns and occupational efficiencies of a non-wetting fluid during the drainage-imbibition cycles, a more realistic microfluidic model is needed to reflect the three-dimensional (3D) nature of pore structures in the underground geologic formation. In this study, we developed an easy-to-adopt method to fabricate a microfluidic device with a 3D random pore network using a sacrificial sugar template. Instead of using a master mold made in photolithography, a sacrificial mold was made using sugar grains so that the mold could be washed away after PDMS curing. First, we made sugar templates with different levels of compaction load, and found that the thickness of the templates decreased as the compaction load increased, which suggests more packing of sugar grains and thus lower porosity in the template. Second, we fabricated PDMS porous media using the sugar template as a mold, and imaged their pore structure using micro computed tomography (micro-CT). Pores within PDSM samples appeared more tightly packed as the compacting force increased. Last, we fabricated a prototype PDMS channel device with a 3D pore network using a sugar template, and visualized flow through the pore network using colored water. The flow visualization result shows that the water was guided by the random pores and that the resultant flow pattern was three dimensional.
KW - Flow visualization
KW - Micro computed tomography imaging
KW - Porosity
KW - Soft lithography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094870936&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1115/FEDSM2020-20356
DO - 10.1115/FEDSM2020-20356
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85094870936
T3 - American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fluids Engineering Division (Publication) FEDSM
BT - Computational Fluid Dynamics; Micro and Nano Fluid Dynamics
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
T2 - ASME 2020 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting, FEDSM 2020, collocated with the ASME 2020 Heat Transfer Summer Conference and the ASME 2020 18th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels, and Minichannels
Y2 - 13 July 2020 through 15 July 2020
ER -