Pilot scale study on UV-C inactivation of bacterial endospores and virus particles in whole milk: evaluation of system efficiency and product quality

UV-C processing of whole milk (WM) using a designed pilot scale Dean flow system was conducted at flow rates (11.88, 23.77, and 47.55 gph), Reynolds number ranges from 2890-11562 and the Dean number (at curved region) calculated as (648-2595) to inactivate bacterial endospores and virus particles. Biodosimetry studies were conducted to quantify the reduction equivalent fluence at selected experimental conditions. Results revealed that the dose distribution improved as flow rate increases, attributed to increase in Dean effects and turbulence intensity. Microbial inactivation studies conducted at 47.55 gph showed 0.91 (stdev:0.15) and 2.14 (stdev:0.19) log reduction/ pass for B. cereus endospores and T1UV phage. Linear inactivation trend was observed against number of passes which clearly demonstrates equivalent dose delivery during each pass. Lipid peroxidation value and volatile profile did not change significantly at UV dose of 60 mJ/cm 2. Lower E EO value signifies the higher electrical efficiency of the system.

Numerical and Experimental Study of Cross-Sectional Effects on the Mixing Performance of the Spiral Microfluidics

Mixing at the microscale is of great importance for various applications ranging from biological and chemical synthesis to drug delivery. Among the numerous types of micromixers that have been developed, planar passive spiral micromixers have gained considerable interest due to their ease of fabrication and integration into complex miniaturized systems. However, less attention has been paid to non-planar spiral micromixers with various cross-sections and the effects of these cross-sections on the total performance of the micromixer. Here, mixing performance in a spiral micromixer with different channel cross-sections is evaluated experimentally and numerically in the Re range of 0.001 to 50. The accuracy of the 3D-finite element model was first verified at different flow rates by tracking the mixing index across the loops, which were directly proportional to the spiral radius and were hence also proportional to the Dean flow. It is shown that higher flow rates induce stronger vortices compared to lower flow rates; thus, fewer loops are required for efficient mixing. The numerical study revealed that a large-angle outward trapezoidal cross-section provides the highest mixing performance, reaching efficiencies of up to 95%. Moreover, the velocity/vorticity along the channel length was analyzed and discussed to evaluate channel mixing performance. A relatively low pressure drop (<130 kPa) makes these passive spiral micromixers ideal candidates for various lab-on-chip applications.

Numerical Analysis of Microchannels Designed for Heat Sinks

Conjugate heat transfer is numerically investigated using a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics approach in various microchannel geometries to identify a high-performance cooling method for piezoelectric ceramic stacks and spindle units in high-precision machines. Straight microchannels with rectangular cross sections are first considered, showing the performance limitations of decreasing the size of the microchannels, so other solutions are needed for high applied heat fluxes. Next, many microchannel designs, focusing on streamwise geometric variation, are compared to straight channels to assess their performances. Sinusoidally varying channels produce the highest heat transfer rates of those studied. Thus, their optimization is considered at a channel width and height of 35 and 100 μm, respectively. Heat transfer increases as the amplitude and spatial frequencies of the channels increase due to increased interfacial surface area and enhanced Dean flow. The highest performance efficiencies are observed at intermediate levels of amplitude and frequency, with efficiency decreasing as these geometric parameters are increased further at the onset of flow separation. The sinusoidal channel geometries are then optimized with respect to minimizing the system’s pressure drop for all applied heat fluxes between 5690 and 6510 kW/m2. Doing so created an optimal geometry curve and showed that all geometries in this region had amplitudes close to 40 μm. Therefore, imposing a fixed heat flux requirement for a case study of cooling piezoelectric ceramics, the optimized sinusoidal geometry decreases the system pressure drop by 79% relative to a straight channel while maintaining a larger minimum feature size.

Hydrodynamic effect of slip boundaries and exponentially decaying/growing time-dependent pressure gradient on Dean flow

Hydrodynamic behaviour of slip flow and radially applied exponential time-dependent pressure gradient in a curvilinear concentric cylinder is examined. A two-step method of solution has been utilized in resolving the governing momentum equation. Accordingly, the exact solution of the time-dependent partial differential equation is derived in terms of the Laplace parameter. Afterwards, the Laplace domain solution is then inverted to time domain using a numerical-based inverting scheme known as Riemann-sum approximation. The effect of various dimensionless parameters involved in the problem on the Dean velocity, shear stresses and Dean vortices is discussed with the aid of graphs. It is found that maximum Dean velocity is due to an exponentially growing time-dependent pressure gradient and slip wall coefficient. Stability of the Dean vortices is achieved by suppressing time, wall slippage and inducing an exponentially decaying time-dependent pressure gradient.