Jet breakup and droplet formation in near-critical regime of carbon dioxide-dichloromethane system

Abstract

The jet breakup and droplet formation mechanism of a liquid in the near-critical conditions of a solvent-antisolvent system is examined with high-speed visualization experiments and simulated using a front tracking/finite volume method. The size of droplets formed under varying system pressure at various jet breakup regimes is measured with a Global Sizing Velocimetry, using the shadow sizing method. A stainless steel nozzle with 0.25 mm I.D and 1.6 mm O.D was used in this study. Experiments were performed at fixed temperature of 35 °C and system pressure in the range from 61 to 76 bar in the near-critical regime of the DCM-CO2. At the near mixture critical regime for DCM-CO2 mixture, the miscibility between the two fluid phases increases and the interfacial tension diminishes. This phase behavior has important applications in particle formation using gas antisolvent (GAS) and supercritical antisolvent (SAS) processes. The jet breakup and droplet formation in the near-critical regime is strongly dependent on the changes in interface tension and velocity of the liquid phase. An understanding of the droplet formation and jet breakup behavior of DCM-CO2 in this regime is useful in experimental design for particle fabrication using SAS method. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.