AUTHOR=Guo Yanhong , Ren Yong , Hou Tuo , Wang Jing , Wang Chengbo 

TITLE=Numerical Study on the Formation and Solidification of LMPA Microdroplet in a Microfluidic Device

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Energy Research

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2022.843118

DOI=10.3389/fenrg.2022.843118

ISSN=2296-598X

ABSTRACT=The low melting point alloy (LMPA) droplets or particles have contributed to many filed such as the application of sensors and valves, and droplet-based microfluidics have been applied to the preparation of LMPA droplets. Understanding how flow rate, interfacial tension and temperature affect the formation and solidification of droplets is helpful to design microfluidic platform. In this study, we use numerical simulation to evaluate how these factors affect the LMPA droplet formation and solidification process. We find that increasing the velocity of continuous phase or decreasing the interfacial tension will reduce the LMPA droplet size and simultaneously increase the frequency of droplet formation. In addition, increasing the continuous phase velocity will decrease the required solidification time of LMPA droplets, and the solidification time of droplets will first increase and then decrease with the growth of interfacial tension. On the other hand, increasing the continuous phase temperature or cooling wall temperature will reduce the solidification time of LMPA droplets, but has no obvious influence on the size and frequency of droplet generation.