Water-Silicone Oil Two-Phase Flow Hydrodynamics in a Square Glass Microchannel

This work visualized water-silicone oil two-phase flow patterns both at the inlet cross-junction and in the main square microchannel with a channel width of 400 μm. Tubing/threading, dripping and jetting were identified at the inlet junction while annular, slug and droplet flows were categorized in the main microchannel at 50 mm downstream of the junction. Flow patterns were represented in terms of superficial velocities and dimensionless numbers. Compared to water-silicone oil flow, addition of surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in water, with a dilute SDS concentration of 1000 ppm, narrows the dripping regime and widens the jetting regime at the inlet junction, while narrows the slug flow regime and widens the droplet flow regime in the main microchannel. A decrease in dynamic interfacial tension due to SDS addition is supposed to be the reason for such a flow pattern modification. Besides, for slug flow, the slug length can be scaled as a power law of the flow rate ratio and the Capillary number of the organic phase. The slug velocity is linearly dependent on the bulk average velocity for both cases with and without SDS addition.