Analytische Chemie
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Air-coupled ultrasonic testing is widely used in the industry for the non-destructive testing of compound materials. It provides a fast and efficient way to inspect large concrete civil infrastructures for damage that might lead to catastrophic failure. Due to the large penetration depths required for concrete structures, the use of traditional piezoelectric transducer requires high power electric systems. In this study, a novel fluidic transducer based on a bistable fluidic amplifier is investigated. Previous experiments have shown that the switching action of the device produces a high-power broadband ultrasonic signal. This study will provide further insight into the switching behaviour of the fluidic switch. Therefore, parametric CFD simulations based on compressible supersonic RANS simulations were performed, varying the inlet pressure and velocity profiles for the control flow. Switching times are analyzed with different methods, and it was found that These are mostly independent of the slope of the velocity profile at the control port. Furthermore, it was found that an inversely proportional relationship exists between flow velocity in the throat and the switching time. The results agree with the theoretical background established by experimental studies that can be found in the literature.
The demand for increasing product diversity in the chemical process industry calls for new production processes that enable greater flexibility. Therefore, plants are needed that produce significant quantities for market supply that can be scaled up to several tons per year. Compared to traditional batch processes, intensified continuous production enables not only flexibility but also the production of compounds that are difficult to produce. Custom-designed small-scale reactors significantly improve heat and mass transfer through micro mixing and can improve safety, e.g. in the case of high grade exothermic or high-pressure reactions, and might play an important role for customized, modular production facilities.1 Combined with optimally designed flow cells, compact NMR instruments currently present promising analytical tools for use in flow chemistry applications.2,3 In recent process monitoring applications, the flow cell and the mixing unit are usually separated parts leading to a severe time delay between mixing and first data acquisition.
In this work, we present a comprehensive workflow for the design of a flow cell−mixer combination based on CFD simulation and other design principles.4 Due to the increasing opportunities in additive manufacturing of ceramics, it was possible to realize an optimized SMX-type mixer with a fully integrated NMR flow cell (cf. Fig. 1).
Validation studies exhibited 1H NMR spectra with a quality comparable to common NMR glass tubes. So far, the mixing performance of the system has been evaluated for different mass flow rates within the intended working range of 5–120 seconds region and compared to ideally mixed samples. Thus, the integrated flow cell−static mixer combination can be used for different purposes such as evaluation of fluid properties, equilibration studies, or reaction monitoring of two instantaneously mixed samples.
The ceramic flow cell was additively manufactured and analyzed through x-ray microtomography revealing surface characteristics due to the manufacturing process (cf. Fig. 2). Furthermore, the working range of the whole system was characterized leading to an operational specification for further applications.
In summary, the role of custom-designed components for modular, chemical production, amongst other essential factors like fast development of reliable evaluation models is discussed.
References
[1] Bornemann-Pfeiffer et al., Chem. Ing. Tech. (2021), 93: 1–10
[2] Kern et al., Anal. Bioanal. Chem. (2018) 410: 3349–3360
[3] Kern et al., Anal. Bioanal. Chem. (2019) 411: 3037–3046
[4] Bornemann et al., Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. (2019), 58: 19562−19570