Microfluidics and Rheology of Carbon Black Dilute Suspensions: Modeling, Measurement, and Applications

摘要

Microfluidics and rheology are critical in designing microfluidic systems. A study of the slip flow and rheological properties of suspension fluids becomes more challenging at microscale levels. In this work, a customized microslit rheometer has been developed and used to test carbon black suspensions using micrometer-sized channel gaps (25 μm and 100 μm). A reduced viscosity of the suspension fluid due to wall slip was found in the 25-μm-gap channel. Rheological models for the microslit rheometer were derived using no-slip and slip boundary conditions to calculate the viscosity of the suspension fluid at the microscale level. By analyzing the viscosity data using the developed rheological models, we can determine the values of the slip parameter, known as slip length (β).