Parallelized microfluidic droplet generators with improved ladder–tree distributors for production of monodisperse γ-Al2O3 microspheres (Open Access)--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Yi, H., Lu, S., Wu, J., Wang, Y., & Luo, G. (2022). Parallelized microfluidic droplet generators with improved ladder–tree distributors for production of monodisperse γ-Al2O3 microspheres. Particuology, 62, 47-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2021.08.002

Parallelized microfluidic droplet generators with improved ladder–tree distributors for production of monodisperse γ-Al₂O₃ microspheres (Open Access)

Huilin Yi ^a, Shuliang Lu ^b, Jiajia Wu ^b, Yujun Wang ^a *, Guangsheng Luo ^a

a State Key Lab of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b Sinopec Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Industry, Beijing 100000, China

10.1016/j.partic.2021.08.002

Volume 62, March 2022, Pages 47-54

Received 25 May 2021, Revised 11 August 2021, Accepted 16 August 2021, Available online 26 August 2021, Version of Record 10 September 2021.

E-mail: wangyujun@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

Highlights

• An improved ladder–tree distributor is proposed and used for microchannel scale-up.

• 2D scale-up effect is investigated using simple water–oil system.

• High-performance γ-Al₂O₃ microsphere are continuously synthesized.

• Superior catalytic performance of microsphere is demonstrated in methanation.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a parallelized microfluidic device with improved ladder–tree distributors for the scaled-up production of monodisperse microspheres. Owing to the improved distribution form comprising a ladder distributor in the center and tree distributors around the circumference, the uniformity of the generated droplets for our device was improved by 32.9% and 86.1% compared to those achieved in devices with conventional tree and ladder distributors, respectively, in the final production stage with 32 droplet generators, indicating the potential of our device for further scale-up while maintaining the monodispersity of the generated droplets. The effect of the 2D scale-up of our device was investigated by varying the continuous-phase flow rate and viscosity. Using our device, γ-Al₂O₃ microspheres with a diameter of 598.1 μm and a CV of 2.58%, as catalyst support for microreactors, were continuously synthesized at high production rate. The nickel-based catalyst prepared from γ-Al₂O₃ microspheres with large specific surface area and pore volume had an average NiO size of 14 nm, which was 60.9% of that supported on industrial support. The CO methanation conversion of the Ni@Al2O3 microspheres was 1.7 times larger than Ni@Al₂O₃ industrial support at 140 °C.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Microfluidics; Scale-up; γ-Al₂O₃ microspheres; Methanation

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