The present disclosure relates generally to separation devices, and more particularly discloses fluidic architectures for the separation of one or more components from a fluid.
In various embodiments of the present disclosure, separation devices include a housing and at least one separation panel. Both the separation panel and the housing have an inlet side and an outlet side. The separation panel further includes a base or substrate, and ribs or walls that form channels in the separation panel. The separation panel channels are fully enclosed by mating the top surface of the ribs or walls to a neighboring surface. This surface could be the bottom of another separation panel or a housing component. The fluid requiring separation flows into the channels from the inlet port and the inlet plenum. The fluid exits the channels from the outlet plenum and the outlet port. It should be noted that the fluid could be either a gas or a liquid and, in some cases, solid particles that can be made to flow in a fluidic path.
The surfaces of some or all of the separation panels may be either the base material or a coating that interacts with the fluid. The interaction would generally be to attract a component within the fluid. By attracting the component or components to a surface, the components are removed from the fluid completely or are reduced in quantity in the fluid.
This type of component removal is commonly used in water filtration processes to remove unwanted chemicals. Chromatography is another area where this concept is utilized. Drug process chromatography utilizes surface attraction to separate a specific component from a “soup” of many components. In most cases that involve extracting one or more components from a fluid, the separated component is the component of interest. After separation process, the target component is retrieved in a second process where a wash fluid is run though the device that eliminates the attraction of the component to the surface thereby releasing the component into a solution with the wash fluid.
Analytical chromatography adds an additional timing constraint to a separation process. Analytical chromatography is used to separate a large number of components within a solution from one another over time. To maintain the timing of component removal, the flow through all areas of the separation device has to be consistent. Therefore all the fluid flow paths within the device must have similar lengths and resistance.
The accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, together with the detailed description below, illustrate embodiments of concepts that include the claimed disclosure, and explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments.
The methods and systems disclosed herein have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present disclosure so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
The present disclosure is generally directed to configurations of separation devices that are utilized to separate a particular component from a fluid, either gas, liquid, or solid particles that have fluidic characteristics. Separation panels used in the devices deploy ribs to create walls and channels for fluids to flow from an inlet area to an outlet area through the separation device. The separation panels are stacked to form the device. The panels described herein are not in communication with each other, that is to say, there are no through holes in the panels themselves. The only communication between the layers is at the inlets and outlets of the device. This allows different manufacturing techniques to be utilized, such as forming the channels in a plastic film and then stacking multiple films. This technique is an alternative to etching processes.
Referring first to
The top housing 2 has an inlet port 6 and an outlet port 7. These ports 6, 7 direct fluids to and from the internal plenums inside the separation device 1. In
As is illustrated in
The layered nature of the separation panels 4 is apparent in the various figures of the drawings. The plenums 10, 11 extend from a bottom surface of the top housing 2 to a top surface of the bottom housing 3. This configuration allows fluid to flow from the inlet areas to all of the channels 12 within the separation device 1. As mentioned above, with some applications it is critical that the flow in these channels be very nearly equal. Plenums are a known mechanism to deliver fluids to a number of channels at equal pressure and volume.
The dimensions chosen for the channels 12 in a given device depend on the characteristics of the fluid and the component being separated from the fluid. The diffusion rate of the component in the fluid and the velocity of the flow are the main factors that drive the selection of channel dimensions. Small dimensions are typically preferred for separation devices. Smaller dimensions create proportionally more surface area for the accumulation of attracted components within a separation device. Smaller dimensions also produce a smaller distance for a component to diffuse to and be retained at a surface of a channel 4. A typical channel size for high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation devices is on the order of 1.5 micron to 2 microns. Manufacturing and flow constraints limit the size that is feasible for channels in the current art. The structures and methodology disclosed herein essentially remove those limitations to channel size.
Using the configurations described herein, current semiconductor processing equipment can create separation channels at a one atomic scale. This factor allows for extremely accurate and consistently sized channels. It also allows for the creation of almost any sized channels desired by the user. Separation panels 4 can be fabricated by semiconductor processing and/or they can be molded from a semiconductor master. Further, a secondary or tertiary mold can be made from a semiconductor master to mold separation panels 4. Separation panels 4 would preferably be fabricated from a polymer (plastic). Polymer panels can be molded with a number of molding techniques—compression molding, injection molding, roll to roll molding, hot embossing, or UV curing of structures are all feasible. Equipment utilized to manufacture CD/DVDs can be used to manufacture separation panels. Polymers can also be molded with roll to roll equipment and cut into panels. Some gift-wrapping material has nanometer scale features formed by roll to roll manufacturing that create color by diffraction. The creation of nanometer scale structures on a film for gift-wrapping demonstrates the cost effectiveness of roll to roll manufacturing.
Referring now to
The technology disclosed herein addresses improved configurations for separation devices. The improvements disclosed are independent of the actual surface material used to achieve the separation process. There is a myriad of choices that would suffice as the material from which to form the separation panels and coatings on their surfaces. Further, the type of material used to create the separation panels is not limited to plastic or semiconductor material. Glass or metals could be deployed. It should be self-evident that one skilled in the art of catalytic materials could engineer a specific catalytic material to be used for separation to be used in a given application.
The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present disclosure has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the present disclosure in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure. Exemplary embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the present disclosure and its practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the present disclosure for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the technology. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprise” and/ or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
It will be understood that like or analogous elements and/or components, referred to herein, may be identified throughout the drawings with like reference characters. It will be further understood that several of the figures are merely schematic representations of the present disclosure. As such, some of the components may have been distorted from their actual scale for pictorial clarity.
In the foregoing description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth, such as particular embodiments, procedures, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced in other embodiments that depart from these specific details.
Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, the appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” or “according to one embodiment” (or other phrases having similar import) at various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. Furthermore, depending on the context of discussion herein, a singular term may include its plural forms and a plural term may include its singular form. Similarly, a hyphenated term (e.g., “on-demand”) may be occasionally interchangeably used with its non-hyphenated version (e.g., “on demand”), a capitalized entry (e.g., “Software”) may be interchangeably used with its non-capitalized version (e.g., “software”), a plural term may be indicated with or without an apostrophe (e.g., PE's or PEs), and an italicized term (e.g., “N+1”) may be interchangeably used with its non-italicized version (e.g., “N+1”). Such occasional interchangeable uses shall not be considered inconsistent with each other.
While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. The descriptions are not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the particular forms set forth herein. To the contrary, the present descriptions are intended to cover such alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims and otherwise appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments.
This application claims priority of Provisional Application filing No. 62/919,620, filed Mar. 20, 2019. The disclosure of that application is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62919620 | Mar 2019 | US |