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Sorting catalytic particles in microfluidics using the Magnus effect

Keizer, Hans (2018) Sorting catalytic particles in microfluidics using the Magnus effect.

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Abstract:Fluid catalyic cracking (FCC) particles are currently used in almost half of the gasoline production to crack hydrocarbons into fuels. However, during the FCC process the particles get deactivated due to accumulation of some metals like Iron (Fe), Nickel (Ni) and Vanadium (V). To investigate the activity of FCC particles for different Fe loadings, the particles were sorted using magnetophoresis. This analysis showed that the activity of a particle decrease for a higher Fe loading. However, it was observed that not all particles with a high Fe loading were inactive. Based on this observation, two different distributions of Fe are likely, namely an uniform distribution or cluster forming. Therefore a sorting mechanism to sort the FCC particles based on their Fe distribution is needed to investigate the activity of the particles even better. The sorting of the particles was done in microfluidics using the Magnus effect. This effect is expressed by rotating particles placed in an external rotating field. Particles with clusters will experience a torque and start to rotate, whereas particles with an uniform distribution will not rotate. The microfluidic chip is designed to focus the particles solely using the gravitational force. Furthermore, the particles move through the chip without interacting with the walls of the system. The model created to predict the magnetic field, rotational length, gravitational force, magnetic force, torque, Magnus force to obtain the particle trajectories, is validated experimentally using Janus Particles. The ability to sort particles based on the Magnus effect has been shown using both Janus and FCC particles. The measured deflection was between 25 and 65 μm, which is too small to sort the particles using this chip. However, if the starting position of the particles and the deflection due to the Magnus effect is improved, the particles can potentially be sorted using the Magnus effect.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:02 science and culture in general
Programme:Electrical Engineering MSc (60353)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/76597
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