This programme aims at realising very new processing concepts, novel products and mild isolation of ingredients resulting also in the reduction of usage of energy and other utilities. On the one hand it will generate better insight in the dynamics of multiphase fluids in microsystems, and on the other hand will enable larger scale application making use of those new insights, and knowledge of the behaviour of mesophase forming components in microchannels.
We will specifically explore emulsification and separation with microsystems. Microsystem emulsification can yield monodisperse emulsions under extremely mild conditions, at low energy consumption levels. We will give attention to the dynamics of spontaneous droplet formation and the interaction between many nozzles when scaling out. For separation, new engineering approaches are explored to make and apply membranes with highly complex outer geometries and incorporating other driving forces.
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