AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Linear Multiplexed Electrospray Atomizers Micro-machined from Metal and Polymers
BRANDON LOJEWSKI, Weiwei Yang, Weiwei Deng, University of Central Florida
Abstract Number: 681 Working Group: Aerosol Physics
Abstract Multiplexed electrospray is a promising aerosol generation technique to produce high throughput monodisperse droplets in the nanometer and micron size range. Here we report the design, fabrication, analysis and performance of a linear electrospray (LINES) system. The fabrication of the nozzle array is based on a precision CNC micromachining platform with 1-micron resolution. This rapid prototyping approach offers the flexibility of creating devices from a wide range of materials including metals and polymers with packing densities on par with silicon microfabrication at 20 sources/cm for LINES devices and 460 sources per square cm for the two-dimensional array. The LINES device uses a slot extractor design to simplify alignment and enhance operation robustness. We also used dummy nozzles to offset edge effect on electric filed and improve droplet size uniformity. We derived the approximate spray expansion model from first principles. We applied the line-of-charge approximation to establish scaling laws for prescribing operating conditions. The devices show excellent droplet size uniformity from source to source, with relative standard deviation (RSD) <3%.