Fluid Flow Simulation of Preconcentration Membranes Using Finite Elements ToolsR. Inglés, J. Pallares, J.L. Ramirez, and E. Llobet
Dept. of Electronic, Electrical and Automatic Control Engineering, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
Department of Mechanical Engineering School of Chemical
Engineering Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
We use finite elements simulations in order to study the fluid flow behavior in a chamber of a preconcentrator. We realized that most part of the fluid does not affect our preconcentrator because it is going out the chamber at high distance above it and parallel to the preconcentrator. So, we are wasting most part of our fluid and we need a lot of time to have a good concentrator factor. We propose a chamber modification that forces the fluid to go near the preconcentrator and perpendicular to it, thus, improving concentration factor almost twice. With this new design we are able to concentrate more analyte in the same period of time.