Dielectric heating | EPFL Graph Search

Dielectric heating, also known as electronic heating, radio frequency heating, and high-frequency heating, is the process in which a radio frequency (RF) alternating electric field, or radio wave or microwave electromagnetic radiation heats a dielectric material. At higher frequencies, this heating is caused by molecular dipole rotation within the dielectric. Mechanism Molecular rotation occurs in materials containing polar molecules having an electrical dipole moment, with the consequence that they will align themselves in an electromagnetic field. If the field is oscillating, as it is in an electromagnetic wave or in a rapidly oscillating electric field, these molecules rotate continuously by aligning with it. This is called dipole rotation, or dipolar polarisation. As the field alternates, the molecules reverse direction. Rotating molecules push, pull, and collide with other molecules (through electrical forces), distributing the energy to adjacent molecules and atoms

Inflight Microwave Drying Process of Micro-droplets for High Resolution 3D printing

Kwanghoon Choi

A new Additive-Manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing concept is proposed to improve the printing resolution for metal additive manufacturing in the frame of the SFA-AM project, Powder Focusing for Beam-Induced Laser 3D Printing. The project aims to transport small powder particles (largest diameter < 10 um) at a high throughput to a spot smaller than 20 µm. To realize the objective, a metal ion included liquid is suggested as a source medium similar to the inkjet process, and the droplet is employed as a container for the metal ion transport. The key challenges of achieving this goal are 1) droplet size control and 2) efficient microwave heating that can dry the liquid portion of the dynamic droplet at a high-speed (3 m/s). The most demanding part is the development of a miniaturized, very concentrated field density microwave resonator where the droplet is passing through. This follows from the extremely short interaction time between the microwave and the ejected droplets (research: 0.5 ms) which results from the requirement for a small system size for its integration. The primary medium examined for the experiment is water due to 1) a high dielectric loss proportional to the drying efficiency and 2) avoiding explosion risks at the laser sintering stage compared to organic solutions. Various droplet generation conditions were investigated to determine the optimum conditions for the custom droplet generator, in particular, two key parameters were focused on: frequency and flow rate. The droplets obtained were analyzed with respect to size, gap distance, and linearity affecting the uniformity of the AM process. Moreover, Navier-Stokes-based fluid dynamics simulations enabled understanding of droplets behaviors, especially break-up formation. Eventually, the optimal condition for producing the smallest droplets with a diameter of 100 µm is determined to be 15 kHz and 0.5 ml/min. Such droplets loaded with metallic particles could result in smaller than 20 um of remaining metal powders aggregate after the drying process.A new TEM (Transverse ElectroMagnetic) resonator has been developed for drying and sensing applications. A full-wave electromagnetic simulation software, CST Microwave Studio, supported the working mode of the device. Firstly, it is used for the dielectric characterizations of different water-ethanol mixtures contained in a micro capillary. The sensing relies on electric field perturbation due to the inserted sample, and is measured based on the change of both resonance frequency and Q-factor. These sample-dependent variations were analyzed to estimate the complex permittivity using different methods such as the Perturbation Method (PM), Least-Square Model (LSM), and Log-Linear Model (LLM). This work demonstrates that the proposed microwave module is capable of sensing nano-liter volume ranges even though the samples only partially influence the sensing area (error < 13 % in permittivity). In microwave heating, the developed resonator achieved a temperature increase of 28 K in the microwave exposal time of 0.5 ms when the microwave power of 45 W was applied. Finally, numerical models have been proposed to estimate the maximum temperature of the initial droplet before cooling starts attributable to heat and mass transfer. This model well corresponds to the microwave electromagnetic simulation resulting in similar temperature deviations. It helps to determine the net heating efficiency of the microwave device.

EPFL2022

Nitric oxide release from Polydimethylsiloxane-based Polyurethanes

Evelyne Nguyen

In bypass graft surgery, surgeons have turned to synthetic materials such as polyethylene terephthalate (Dacron) and expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) when lacking sufficient and suitable arteries or veins for the procedure. However, due to their low patency in small-caliber bypass surgery (

2009

Hyperthermia with rotating magnetic nanowires inducing heat into tumor by fluid friction

William Bovy, Bastien De Marco, Anne-Gabrielle Pawlowski, Didier Albert Simon Vuarnoz

A magnetic hyperthermia cancer treatment strategy that does not operate by means of conventional heating mechanisms is presented. The proposed approach consists of injecting a gel with homogeneously distributed magnetic nanowires into a tumor. Upon the application of a low-frequency rotating or circularly polarized magnetic field, nanowires spin around their center of viscous drag due to torque generated by shape anisotropy. As a result of external rotational forcing and fluid friction in the nanoparticle's boundary layer, heating occurs. The nanowire dynamics is theoretically and experimentally investigated, and different feasibility proofs of the principle by physical modeling, which adhere to medical guidelines, are presented. The magnetic nanorotors exhibit rotations and oscillations with quite a steady center of gravity, which proves an immobile behavior and guarantees a time-independent homogeneity of the spatial particle distribution in the tumor. Furthermore, a fluid dynamic and thermodynamic heating model is briefly introduced. This model is a generalization of Penne's model that for this method reveals theoretic heating rates that are sufficiently high, and fits well into medical limits defined by present standards.

American Institute of Physics2016

Inflight Microwave Drying Process of Micro-droplets for High Resolution 3D printing

Kwanghoon Choi

EPFL2022