A Bidirectional Knudsen Pump with a 3D-Printed Thermal Management Platform

Cheng, Qisen and Qin, Yutao and Gianchandani, Yogesh B. (2021) A Bidirectional Knudsen Pump with a 3D-Printed Thermal Management Platform. Micromachines, 12 (1). p. 58. ISSN 2072-666X

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Abstract

This paper reports on a bidirectional Knudsen pump (KP) with a 3D-printed thermal management platform; the pump is intended principally for microscale gas chromatography applications. Knudsen pumps utilize thermal transpiration, where non-viscous flow is created against a temperature gradient; no moving parts are necessary. Here, a specialized design leverages 3D direct metal laser sintering and provides thermal management that minimizes loss from a joule heater located on the outlet side of KP, while maintaining convective cooling on the inlet side. The 3D-KP design is integrative and compact, and is specifically intended to simplify assembly. The 3D-KP pumping area is ≈1.1 cm2; with the integrated heat sink, the structure has a footprint of 64.2 × 64.2 mm2. Using mixed cellulose ester (MCE) membranes with a 25 nm average pore diameter and 525 μm total membrane thickness as the pumping media, the 3D-KP achieves a maximum flow rate of 0.39 sccm and blocking pressure of 818.2 Pa at 2 W input power. The operating temperature is 72.2 °C at ambient room temperature. In addition to MCE membranes, anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes are evaluated as the pumping media; these AAO membranes can accommodate higher operating temperatures than MCE membranes. The 3D-KP with AAO membranes with 0.2 μm average pore diameter and 531 μm total membrane thickness achieves a maximum flow rate of 0.75 sccm and blocking pressure of 496.1 Pa at 9.8 W at an operating temperature of 191.2 °C.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: gas chromatography; gas flow; nanoporous membranes; microactuator
Subjects: STM Repository > Engineering
Depositing User: Managing Editor
Date Deposited: 03 Aug 2024 13:06
Last Modified: 03 Aug 2024 13:06
URI: http://classical.goforpromo.com/id/eprint/668

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