Nucleation and Droplet Growth During Co-Condensation of Nonane and D2O in a Supersonic Nozzle
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Nucleation and Droplet Growth During Co-condensation of Nonane and D2O in a Supersonic Nozzle DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Harshad Narayan Pathak Graduate Program in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Barbara E. Wyslouzil, Advisor Isamu Kusaka Bhavik Bakshi Copyright by Harshad Narayan Pathak 2013 Abstract Raw natural gas consists mainly of methane and has impurities like water vapor, higher alkanes, H2S etc. Dehydration of natural gas is important to prevent hydrate formation in pipelines carrying natural gas over long distances. Traditionally, dehydration is done using chemical methods like pressure swing absorption and glycol dehydration. An alternate method of dehydration is by using a mechanical process of supersonic separation. In this method, raw natural gas is cooled down by adiabatic expansion resulting in condensation of water vapor and higher alkanes. The goal of this work is to understand the nucleation and droplet growth when droplet sizes are of the order of nm and timescales are of the order of microseconds when water and alkanes, two substances which are immiscible, condense together. We use supersonic nozzles in this work where cooling rates are of the order of 105-106 K/s. The supersonic velocities of the flow enable measurements on a resolution of the order of microseconds. Pressure trace measurement (PTM) is our basic experimental technique and it characterizes the flow by measuring the pressure profile inside the supersonic nozzle as the vapor-gas mixture expands and vapor condenses inside the nozzle. These experiments give us the initial estimate of temperature, density, velocity and mass fraction of the condensate. We use Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to get the composition of the condensed liquid/vapor. To determine the amount of nonane ii condensed, we fit the measured spectrum of nonane to a linear combination of a well- characterized vapor and liquid spectrum. For D2O analysis, we calculate D2O vapor concentration by analyzing the vibrational-rotational spectrum of O-D stretch region. The size and number of droplets is characterized using small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) that are performed in Argonne National Laboratory. The nucleation rates for pure D2O and nonane agree with previous measurements done by other researchers. The subsequent process of growth of the droplets can be sensitive to droplet temperatures Td. For pure nonane droplets, we observe that Td is not important enough to alter the growth rates unlike pure D2O. The growth of D2O droplets is further affected by coagulation once condensation has slowed down. We also observe that when nonane and D2O both are condensing, the presence of nonane inhibits D2O condensation even when D2O dominates the nucleation process. Prediction of the droplet structure of composite nonane-D2O droplets is challenging because the SAXS spectra of these droplets does not fit to standard shapes like spheres or core-shell structures. The small size of these droplets makes it possible to study them through molecular dynamics simulations. Our collaborators conduct simulations of these droplets and calculate the scattering behavior for those shapes. The SAXS spectra are fit to scattering from shapes derived from both density functional theory (DFT) calculations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Although the ‘lens-on-sphere’ structures derived from MD simulations fits the scattering spectra better than all other structures which we tested, the overall composition from this structure predicts that the amount of D2O condensed is 30-40% less than that measured from FTIR. iii Dedication Dedicated to my mother, father and all my close friends and family. iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank my research advisor, Dr. Barbara Wyslouzil for her mentorship. She is the best advisor one could ask for. I am thankful to her for tolerating my odd working hours. Research discussions with her have been immensely helpful in developing my understanding of concepts and advancing my research forward. She has been a true source of knowledge and support. I would also like to thank my collaborators Dr. Judith Wölk and Dr. Gerald Wilemski. Listening to their research ideas and working on their input has always helped me learn something new. Another source of guidance in my first year was Dr. Shinobu Tanimura whose meticulousness and self-discipline has been an inspiration. I would also like to thank National Science Foundation, Argonne National Lab, the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund and Deutsche Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service) for funding this work. I am also thankful to instrument scientist, Dr. Soenke Seifert from Argonne National Lab for his continuous help during our beamtime at Argonne National Lab. I would like to acknowledge the guidance which I received during my first few months from Dr. Hartawan Laksmono, Dr. Kelley Mullick and Dr. Ashutosh Bhabhe who helped me ease into graduate work. I am also thankful to Dirk Bergmann, Daniel Weckstein and Dr. v Alexandra Manka for helping me perform experiments. I would like to thank my friendly and trustworthy colleagues like Viraj Modak, Dr. Anthony Duong, Matthew Gallovic, Alyssa Robson, Gauri Nabar and Andrew Amaya who have made my workplace enjoyable. I am also thankful to Matthew Souva who helped me reinstall important software on my computer when my hard disk crashed two months before the dissertation defense. I am also grateful to all my friends in Columbus whose company has never made me feel lonely. Special thanks to Dr. Nihar Phalak, Prateik Singh, Anshuman Fuller and Somsundaram Chettiar who have been my roommates and supported me through thick and thin. I also consider myself fortunate to have been friends with Kalpesh Mahajan, Hrishikesh Munj, Niranjani Deshpande, Mandar Kathe, Dr. Shreyas Rao, Dr. Preshit Gawade, Dr. Shweta Singh and Dr. Kartik Ramasubramanian. I would also like to thank Dr. Bryan Mark and his family who have been kind enough to invite me to their Thanksgiving dinner every year. I would like to thank my parents, Narayan Pathak and Anuradha Pathak, for their love and support. They have always encouraged me to be independent and follow my dreams which at times have been unconventional. They have helped me shape my self- confidence and will power and for that, I am forever grateful. vi Vita August 2004- June 2008 ................................Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India September 2008- August 2009.......................University Fellow, The Ohio State University September 2008- June 2011...........................M.S. in Chemical Engineering, The Ohio State University September 2009- August 2010.......................Graduate Teaching Associate, First Year Engineering Program, The Ohio State University September 2009- present................................Graduate Research Associate, The Ohio State University vii Publications 1. H. Pathak, K. Mullick, S. Tanimura, and B. E. Wyslouzil. Nonisothermal Droplet Growth in the Free Molecular Regime. Aerosol Science and Technology 47, 1310- 1324 (2013). 2. Bhabhe, H. Pathak, and B. E. Wyslouzil. Freezing of heavy water (D2O) nanodroplets, Journal of Phys. Chem. A. 117, 5472-5482 (2013). 3. V. Modak; H. Pathak; M. Thayer; S.J. Singer and B. E. Wyslouzil. Experimental evidence for surface freezing in supercooled n-alkane nanodroplets. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 15, 6783-6795 (2013). 4. A. Manka, H. Pathak, S. Tanimura, J. Wölk, R. Strey, and B. E. Wyslouzil. Freezing water in no-man’s land. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 14, 4505- 4516 (2012). Fields of Study Major Field: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering viii Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication.......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita.................................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Phase Transitions ...................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Classical Nucleation Theory..................................................................................... 3 1.3 Motivation for the current work................................................................................ 6 1.4 Objective and Thesis Outline.................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2 Experimental Methods ..................................................................................... 12 2.1 Materials ................................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Experimental set-up ................................................................................................ 13 2.3 Experimental techniques........................................................................................