Rapid microfluidic screening of CO2 solubility and diffusion in pure and mixed solvents

Abstract

We present a high-throughput method to determine rapidly and simultaneously the solubility and the diffusivity of CO₂ in pure solvents and mixtures using segmented flow in a microchannel. Gas bubbles are injected via a T-junction into the liquid stream and the evolution of the bubbles’ lengths are followed visually. We measure both solubility and diffusion coefficient from the shrinkage and expansion of the bubbles. The presented method is used to study the physical absorption of CO₂ in various pure solvents and to screen the complete composition space of binary and ternary mixtures.