Design and implementation of a low-cost microfluidic system for pollutant removal in wastewater caused by pharmaceutical industry

Recently, microfluidic devices have been used for diverse applications in drug delivery, food industry, and wastewater treatment. Here, we designed, simulated, manufactured, and characterized two different low-cost microfluidic devices with the aim of obtaining the same behavior for both in the production of microcapsules of sodium alginate to encapsulate laccase enzyme from Pycnoporus sanguineus CS43. COMSOL Multiphysics was used to obtain the velocity profiles and volume fractions, which is especially useful to observe droplet generation at both junctions and estimate the capsule size. The microfluidic devices were manufactured using Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) sheets. Different flow rates were tested for Qc and Qd, but the final selected flow rates were 80 mL/h for the continuous phase and 0.7 mL/h for the discrete phase, which yielded better results in simulations and experimental data for monodisperse capsules, with average size for the microcapsules of 1108,94 {mi}m of diameter. Qc was found to be the dominant parameter to control microcapsules size in both systems and the results showed that the behavior of both microfluidic devices was, in fact, the same.

• Autores: Ramos Calderón, Natalia
• Tipo de recurso: Trabajo de grado de pregrado
• Fecha de publicación: 2021
• Institución: Universidad de los Andes
• Repositorio: Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/53428
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/1992/53428
• Palabra clave: Microfluídica; Alginatos; Lacasas; Ingeniería
• Rights: openAccess
• License: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/static/pdf/aceptacion_uso_es.pdf