Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials

Material discovery for sustainable energy materials has historically been rate-limited by low-throughput synthesis and characterization methods. However, using automation, these rate-limiting steps can be improved. The accelerated development of sustainable materials necessitates the creation of a h...

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Main Author: Maredia, Sharil
Other Authors: Buonassisi, Tonio
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2024
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156609
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author Maredia, Sharil
author2 Buonassisi, Tonio
author_facet Buonassisi, Tonio
Maredia, Sharil
author_sort Maredia, Sharil
collection MIT
description Material discovery for sustainable energy materials has historically been rate-limited by low-throughput synthesis and characterization methods. However, using automation, these rate-limiting steps can be improved. The accelerated development of sustainable materials necessitates the creation of a high-throughput synthesis and assembly system, capable of rapidly iterating and characterizing proposed designs. Archerfish, the current tool used for multi-material deposition, is a strong first step in this direction, automatically generating compositional gradients of up to two material precursors. However, Archerfish has room for improvement: the device is only capable of handling at most two input precursors and is imprecise due to poor compositional control and mixing. As such, there is a need for an improved junction apparatus that can handle substantially more precursors and ensure mixing while retaining compositional control. Additional challenges associated with this device include the need to be chemically resistant, have millimeter-scale channels, and mix fluids that are initially joined in the laminar flow regime. The proposed design introduces flow obstacles akin to a magician’s sword box and is validated using CFD simulations and mixing experiments.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1566092024-09-04T03:50:53Z Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials Maredia, Sharil Buonassisi, Tonio Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Material discovery for sustainable energy materials has historically been rate-limited by low-throughput synthesis and characterization methods. However, using automation, these rate-limiting steps can be improved. The accelerated development of sustainable materials necessitates the creation of a high-throughput synthesis and assembly system, capable of rapidly iterating and characterizing proposed designs. Archerfish, the current tool used for multi-material deposition, is a strong first step in this direction, automatically generating compositional gradients of up to two material precursors. However, Archerfish has room for improvement: the device is only capable of handling at most two input precursors and is imprecise due to poor compositional control and mixing. As such, there is a need for an improved junction apparatus that can handle substantially more precursors and ensure mixing while retaining compositional control. Additional challenges associated with this device include the need to be chemically resistant, have millimeter-scale channels, and mix fluids that are initially joined in the laminar flow regime. The proposed design introduces flow obstacles akin to a magician’s sword box and is validated using CFD simulations and mixing experiments. S.B. 2024-09-03T21:11:23Z 2024-09-03T21:11:23Z 2024-05 2024-07-10T17:33:31.780Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156609 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Maredia, Sharil
Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title_full Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title_fullStr Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title_full_unstemmed Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title_short Development of a Millimeter-Scale Laminar Flow Mixer for Rapid Iteration of Sustainable Energy Materials
title_sort development of a millimeter scale laminar flow mixer for rapid iteration of sustainable energy materials
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156609
work_keys_str_mv AT marediasharil developmentofamillimeterscalelaminarflowmixerforrapiditerationofsustainableenergymaterials