School of Chemistry - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEffect of solid surface in vicinity of multi-bubble array in cryogenic environment(IOP PUBLISHING LTD, 2020-01-01)Abstract Multiple bubble interactions in initially quiescent liquid are often accompanied by generation of jets, shockwaves and light. At cryogenic temperature (< 123 K) when certain materials (particularly bcc-type) become brittle, such afore-mentioned physical effects can be effective in disintegrating them to smaller fragments. CFD techniques based on direct numerical simulations can help to understand this phenomenon that may benefit nanotechnology-based industries and oil-gas exploration-firms working with air-gun arrays. In this paper, multiple bubble-pairs are simulated in a co-centric manner around a centrally located solid target (5 mm radius). The ambient fluid is liquid nitrogen (77 K) and the bubbles are gaseous nitrogen (87 K). 2D numerical simulation using the VOF method in compressible domain is carried out neglecting the effect of phase change and gravity. The stand-off distance between the solid target and bubble-pairs are varied systematically and its influence on the fluid-dynamic effects (e.g. pressure shockwave & jets) are compared. Initial calculations suggest that for stand-off distance of 0.93 mm, shockwaves measure above 10 times the ambient pressure and liquid jet speeds around 30 m/s in cryogenic environment, at multiple locations very close to the solid target. These consecutive physical impacts can foster ample liquid-hammer pressures, making it promising for solid wear at 77 K when juxtaposed against room-temperature cases.
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ItemAcoustic cavitation at low gas pressures in PZT-based ultrasonic systems(ELSEVIER, 2021-02-17)The generation of cavitation-free radicals through evanescent electric field and bulk-streaming was reported when micro-volumes of a liquid were subjected to 10 MHz surface acoustic waves (SAW) on a piezoelectric substrate [Rezk et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2020, 11, 4655-4661; Rezk et al., Adv. Sci. 2021, 8, 2001983]. In the current study, we have tested a similar hypothesis with PZT-based ultrasonic units (760 kHz and 2 MHz) with varying dissolved gas concentrations, by sonochemiluminescence measurement and iodide dosimetry, to correlate radical generation with dissolved gas concentrations. The dissolved gas concentration was adjusted by controlling the over-head gas pressure. Our study reveals that there is a strong correlation between sonochemical activity and dissolved gas concentration, with negligible sonochemical activity at near-vacuum conditions. We therefore conclude that radical generation is dominated by acoustic cavitation in conventional PZT-based ultrasonic reactors, regardless of the excitation frequency.