AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Liquid Atomization via a Newly Designed, Multi-notched Electrospray Head
JINGJIE ZHANG, Da-Ren Chen, Virginia Commonwealth University
Abstract Number: 357 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract The capability of generating monodisperse particles in the sizes ranging from nanometers to micrometers gives the electrohydrodynamic atomization (often called electrospray) the unique advantage over other mechanical techniques. The low mass throughput of single-capillary electrospray, however, limits its industrial applications. Several variations of spray heads have been recently reported to increase the mass throughput of electrospray, such as spray heads with a number of nozzles arranged in linear or 2-D array (i.e., multiplex electrospray). Unfortunately, none of them is practical for industrial scale applications. It is because of the complexity of multiplex systems.
To increase the mass throughput of electrospray, we had previously proposed to electrospray liquid sheet instead of liquid jets. We reported a spray head design allowing ones to vary the number of notches to implement the concept of liquid sheet electrospray. Based on the early version of the nozzle and experience collected during the performance evaluation, we developed a new electrospray head in this study. The new spray head design ensures the uniformity of annual spacing of fluid channel and minimizes the dead volume of the liquid reservoir built in the spray head. The shape of notches is also re-designed to prevent liquid from bridging between two adjacent teeth during the spray operation. The operational envelope and I-V curve of this newly designed multi-notched spray head, and particle sizes produced were characterized in the spray head performance evaluation. The result of this study will be presented in this presentation.