Investigation of droplet nucleation in CCS relevant systems: Progress in the design and testing of the mixture preparation device

Abstract

The study presents progress in the development of mixture preparation device (MPD) representing an important part of the larger experimental setup intended for investigation of homogeneous droplet nucleation in CO2-rich systems. MPD allows for accurate adjustment of flow parameters, i.e. temperature, pressure, and flow rate, of CO2 in either superheated vapor or supercritical fluid phases and of other gas components such as argon or nitrogen. Through accurate settings of flow rates of individual components, the mixture composition can continuously be defined. MPD is going to be connected to the expansion chamber, where the droplet nucleation will experimentally be observed. In this work, CO2-branch, i.e. the core part of MPD, was modified and tested. Several components, e.g., pressure transducers and safety valve, had to be calibrated and adjusted to assure well-defined and safe operation. Most attention was paid to the design and performance of throttling capillary tubes installed in thermostatic bath, which define final flow parameters of CO2 coming from the CO2 branch. The flow characteristics of two capillary tubes with lengths of 7.8 and 4.0 m and inner diameter 0.1 mm were measured and compared to the predictions of a numerical model. The 1-D model of isothermal capillary flow was found to provide quite good agreement with the measured data.