Enhanced Dissolution of Liquid Microdroplets in the Extensional Creeping Flow of a Hydrodynamic Trap

Adil Mustafa, Ahmet Erten*, Rana M.Armaghan Ayaz, Oguz Kaylllloglu, Aysenur Eser, Mustafa Eryürek, Muhammad Irfan, Metin Muradoglu, Melikhan Tanyeri, Alper Kiraz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A novel noncontact technique based on hydrodynamic trapping is presented to study the dissolution of freely suspended liquid microdroplets into a second immiscible phase in a simple extensional creeping flow. Benzyl benzoate (BB) and n-decanol microdroplets are individually trapped at the stagnation point of a planar extensional flow, and dissolution of single microdroplets into an aqueous solution containing surfactant is characterized at different flow rates. The experimental dissolution curves are compared to two models: (i) the Epstein-Plesset (EP) model which considers only diffusive mass transfer, and (ii) the Zhang-Yang-Mao (ZYM) model which considers both diffusive and convective mass transfer in the presence of extensional creeping flow. The EP model significantly underpredicts the experimentally determined dissolution rates for all experiments. In contrast, very good agreement is observed between the experimental dissolution curves and the ZYM model when the saturation concentration of the microdroplet liquid (cs) is used as the only fitting parameter. Experiments with BB microdroplets at low surfactant concentration (10 μM) reveal cs values very similar to that reported in the literature. In contrast, experiments with BB and n-decanol microdroplets at 10 mM surfactant concentration, higher than the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 5 mM, show further enhancements in microdroplet dissolution rates due to micellar solubilization. The presented method accurately tests the dissolution of single microdroplets into a second immiscible phase in extensional creeping flow and has potential for applications such as separation processes, food dispersion, and drug development/design.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)9460-9467
Number of pages8
JournalLangmuir
Volume32
Issue number37
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Sept 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Chemical Society.

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