Computational Fluid Dynamics study of shear-driven flows through ultra-thin micro-channels for miniaturised separation processes.

The current project is focused on the study of shear-driven flows in micro-chanels with a flat rectangular cross-section and their application in miniaturised separation and screening equipment. the concept of shear-driven flows has been originally developed within the department CHIS-TW of the VUB and offers the theoretical possibility to strongly improve the separation speed of currently used preddure- and electrically-driven chromatographic instruments. After having performed a series of theoretical calculations and preliminary experiments, the current project now aims at designing speeds and resolutions predicted by theory can be demonstrated. the flow simulations with the purchased Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD-software package wil serve on the one hand to support a series of high resoution tracer peak broading experiments which will be undertaken in cooperation with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and on the other hand to make a fundamental numerical study of the influence of small variations in channel shape and dimensions on the peak broadening in micro-channel shear-driven flows. The commercial CFD package has been partly selected for the ease with irregular wall shapes can be represented and for the ease with which the flow can be combined with an adsorptive exchange process with the channel walls.