Synthesis of Sodium Chloro Fluoride system for generating micro fractal type structures for microfluidic applications

• Published in: International journal on interactive design and manufacturing 2024-12, Vol.18 (10), p.7241-7249
• Main Authors: Valvi, Sharad, Bhole, Kiran Suresh, Kale, Bharatbhushan S., Gholave, Jayram, Jagtap, Jugal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CAE) and Design; Computer-Aided Engineering (CAD; Electronics and Microelectronics; Engineering; Engineering Design; Enhanced oil recovery; Experiments; Flat plates; Fluids; Fluorides; Fractal analysis; Fractals; Glycerol; Industrial Design; Instrumentation; Laser applications; Mechanical Engineering; Original Paper; Phenols; Phosphate esters; Photopolymers; Polymethyl methacrylate; Resins; Rheology; River networks; Sodium; Surface tension; Viscosity
• ISSN: 1955-2513; 1955-2505
• DOI: 10.1007/s12008-023-01603-2

Microfractal-type structures are abundantly found in nature. To highlight a few, micro fractals are being observed in leaf venation, cardio muscular structures, ice flakes, and so on. These intricate structures can be replicated using the concept of viscous fingering within a Hele-Shaw cell, a setup consisting of two flat plates containing a high-viscosity fluid. Microfractals form when a low-viscosity fluid infiltrates the high-viscosity fluid confined between the plates. The characteristics of these microfractals, such as their shape and size, depend significantly on the properties of the fluids involved and the geometric design of the plates. Therefore, resin characteristics are vital in designing a desired micro fractal. Hence, resin is the governing design of the fractal. Further, a very narrow gap is required maintained in the plate of the Hele-Shaw cell inducing surface tension forces. Here, surface tension and inertial forces governed the formation of fractals. These forces also depend on the viscosity of the resin. Therefore, there is a great need to characterize the resin system. This paper proposed a new resin system that is exhaustively characterized by varying viscosity. The study conducted presents comprehensive computational analysis involving multiple iterations of changing velocity to obtain the desired resin. Various experiments are conducted to produce resins with different viscosities and are assessed for their suitability using the Hele-Shaw cell. This computation work yields the proper design of the microfractals. Photopolymer resin systems are well-known for their suitability in creating microfractals due to their advantageous post-processing capabilities, transitioning from a green state to solid microstructures. This paper explores the comparative analysis of the photopolymer resin system to the proposed low-cost Sodium; 5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy) phenol; fluoride. The proposed solution is synthesised to review its compatibility with the Hele-Shaw configuration and subsequently employed in the manufacturing process to create various micro fractal shapes and sizes. These micro fractal structures are in their green state. They are then cured by exposure to direct sunlight, eliminating the need for a laser-based photo-curing system typically used with photopolymer resin systems.