Engineered Lateral Roughness Element Implementation and Working Fluid Alteration to Intensify Hydrodynamic Cavitating Flows on a Chip for Energy Harvesting

Refractive index sensor based on fano-magnetic toroidal quadrupole resonance enabled by bound state in the continuum in all-dielectric metasurface

For the first time, an all-dielectric metasurface ultra-sensitive refractive index (RI) sensor with very high quality factor (QF) and figure of merit (FOM), with Fano-magnetic toroidal quadrupole (MTQ) resonance enabled by bound state in continuum (BIC) in terahertz (THz) region was designed. Furthermore, the MTQ resonance in the THz due to a distortion of symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum in the designed structure was investigated. Also, to achieve the dark mode, a combination of three methods including (i) breaking the symmetry, (ii) design of complex structures, and (iii) changing the incident angle was utilized. The broken symmetry in the structure caused a new mode to be excited, which is suitable for sensing applications. The designed metasurface was able to sense a wide range of RI in MTQ resonance, where its properties were improved for the value of sensitivity (S) from 217 GHz/RIU to 625 GHz/RIU, for FOM from 197 RIU-1 to 2.21 × 106 RIU-1 and for QF from 872 to 5.7 × 106.

Detergent Dissolution Intensification via Energy-Efficient Hydrodynamic Cavitation Reactors

In this study, we explored the potential of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) for use in dissolution of liquid and powder detergents. For this, microfluidic and polyether ether ketone (PEEK) tube HC reactors with different configurations were employed, and the results from the reactors were compared with a magnetic stirrer, as well as a tergotometer. According to our results PEEK tube HC reactors present the best performance for dissolution of liquid and powder detergents. In the case of liquid detergent, for the same level of initial concentration and comparable final dissolution, the PEEK tube consumed 16.7 and 70% of the energy and time of a tergotometer and 16.7 and 14.8% of that of a magnetic stirrer, respectively. In the case of powder detergent, the PEEK tube used 12% less power than a tergotometer and 81.2% less power than a magnetic stirrer. Additionally, the time required to dissolve the detergent was reduced significantly from 1200 s in the tergotometer and 1800 s in the magnetic stirrer to just 50 s in the PEEK tube. These results suggest that HC could significantly improve the dissolution rate of liquid and powder detergents and energy consumption in washing machines.

Hydrodynamic Cavitation on a Chip: A Tool to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are essential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. Although various devices have been designed to detect, enumerate, and isolate CTCs from blood, some of these devices could have some drawbacks, such as the requirement of labeling, long process time, and high cost. Here, we present a microfluidic device based on the concept of "hydrodynamic cavitation-on-chip (HCOC)", which can detect CTCs in the order of minutes. The working principle relies on the difference of the required inlet pressure for cavitation inception of working fluids when they pass through the microfluidic device. The interface among the solid/floating particles, liquid, and vapor phases plays an important role in the strength of the fluid to withstand the rupture and cavitation formation. To this end, four experimental groups, including the "cell culture medium", "medium + Jurkat cells", "medium + Jurkat cells + CTCs", and "medium + CTCs", were tested as a proof of concept with two sets of fabricated microfluidic chips with the same geometrical dimensions, in which one set contained structural sidewall roughness elements. Jurkat cells were used to mimic white blood cells, and MDA-MB-231 cells were spiked into the medium as CTCs. Accordingly, the group with CTCs led to detectable earlier cavitation inception. Additionally, the effect of the CTC concentration on cavitation inception and the effect of the presence of sidewall roughness elements on the earlier inception were evaluated. Furthermore, CTC detection tests were performed with cancer cell lines spiked in blood samples from healthy donors. The results showed that this approach, HCOC, could be a potential approach to detect the presence of CTCs based on cavitation phenomenon and offer a cheap, user-friendly, and rapid tool with no requirement for any biomarker or extensive films acting as a biosensor. This approach also possesses straightforward application procedures to be employed for detection of CTCs.

Design and fabrication of a vigorous "cavitation-on-a-chip" device with a multiple microchannel configuration

Hydrodynamic cavitation is one of the major phase change phenomena and occurs with a sudden decrease in the local static pressure within a fluid. With the emergence of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), high-speed microfluidic devices have attracted considerable attention and been implemented in many fields, including cavitation applications. In this study, a new generation of 'cavitation-on-a-chip' devices with eight parallel structured microchannels is proposed. This new device is designed with the motivation of decreasing the upstream pressure (input energy) required for facile hydrodynamic cavitation inception. Water and a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) microbubble (MB) suspension are used as the working fluids. The results show that the cavitation inception upstream pressure can be reduced with the proposed device in comparison with previous studies with a single flow restrictive element. Furthermore, using PVA MBs further results in a reduction in the upstream pressure required for cavitation inception. In this new device, different cavitating flow patterns with various intensities can be observed at a constant cavitation number and fixed upstream pressure within the same device. Moreover, cavitating flows intensify faster in the proposed device for both water and the water-PVA MB suspension in comparison to previous studies. Due to these features, this next-generation 'cavitation-on-a-chip' device has a high potential for implementation in applications involving microfluidic/organ-on-a-chip devices, such as integrated drug release and tissue engineering.

An ecologically friendly process for graphene exfoliation based on the "hydrodynamic cavitation on a chip" concept

Tremendous research efforts have recently focused on the synthesis of graphene from graphitic materials, while environmental issues, scalability, and cost are some of the major challenges to be surmounted. Liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphene is one of the principal methods for this synthesis. Nevertheless, sufficient information about the mechanisms of exfoliation has yet to emerge. Here, a microreactor based on the hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) on a chip concept is introduced to exfoliate graphite in a totally green process which involves only natural graphite flakes and water. HC-treated graphitic materials were characterized by UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopy, DLS (Dynamic Light Scattering), AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy), and SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) analyses. The present sustainable reactor system was found to exfoliate thick and large graphite particles to nano-sized sheets (∼1.2 nm) with a lateral size of ∼500 nm to 5 μm.

LPE of graphene with a hydrodynamic cavitation microreactor is a totally green process which involves only natural graphite flakes and water.

Influence of Fluid Properties on Intensity of Hydrodynamic Cavitation and Deactivation of Salmonella typhimurium

In this study, three microfluidic devices with different geometries are fabricated on silicon and are bonded to glass to withstand high-pressure fluid flows in order to observe bacteria deactivation effects of micro cavitating flows. The general geometry of the devices was a micro orifice with macroscopic wall roughness elements. The width of the microchannel and geometry of the roughness elements were varied in the devices. First, the thermophysical property effect (with deionized water and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)) on flow behavior was revealed. The results showed a better performance of the device in terms of cavitation generation and intensity with PBS due to its higher density, higher saturation vapor pressure, and lower surface tension in comparison with water. Moreover, the second and third microfluidic devices were tested with water and Salmonella typhimurium bacteria suspension in PBS. Accordingly, the presence of the bacteria intensified cavitating flows. As a result, both devices performed better in terms of the intensity of cavitating flow with the presence of bacteria. Finally, the deactivation performance was assessed. A decrease in the bacteria colonies on the agar plate was detected upon the tenth cycle of cavitating flows, while a complete deactivation was achieved after the fifteenth cycle. Thus, the proposed devices can be considered as reliable hydrodynamic cavitation reactors for “water treatment on chip” applications.