Low pressure evaporative cooling of micron-sized droplets of solutions and its novel applications

For free molecular regime the mathematical model of low pressure evaporative cooling of binary droplets in gas flow is developed. The model includes five ordinary differential equations and takes into account effects such as the release of the latent heat of condensation of both components and the release of the latent heat of dissolution. Simulations were made for weak aqueous solutions of ammonia. It was discovered that compositions of gas flow and the aqueous solution affect the rate of evaporative cooling of droplets. The ratio of mass flow of solution and gas flow is also an important parameter. The cooling rate of such binary droplets can reach the value of about 2 × 105 K/s. As first applications we consider the air cooler based on evaporative cooling of droplets. For pressure of 20–80 Torr in aerosol reactor, it is shown that in the cooler with length of about 1 m temperature of air flow may drop to about 10–15 °C. The second application is the formation of nanoparticle in evaporating multicomponent droplet with two volatile components. Simulation was made for aqueous solution of ammonia which is widely used by experimentalists and engineers now. Effects of the number of precursors in droplet and supersaturation in droplet on the final size of nanoparticles were investigated.