Considerations in Mesospace

摘要

Many of the problems in air and water filtration involve the creation and entrapment of mesoscale droplets. This is unavoidable in lieu of the inherent physics, i.e. shearing, turbulence, etc., involved in separation and filtration equipment. One approach to dealing with the mescoscale is the employment of complementary chemistries and surface modifications, which can be employed to prevent formation or reverse entrapment. Surface-modified substrates can decrease the surface energy at the droplet interface, causing the droplet to "wet" (contact angle < 90 degrees) the substrate and coalesce. For this approach to work, the substrate must be able to immobilize the captured material so it is not able to re-entrain and form a slightly different meso droplet. Another approach is to exploit the physical chemistry of the situation.