Investigation of droplet nucleation in CCS relevant systems – Design and testing of a CO2 branch of the mixture preparation device

A unique in-house designed experimental apparatus for investigation of nucleation of droplets in CCS relevant systems is being developed by our team. The nucleation is measured with the help of a rapid pressure drop within an expansion chamber. In this study, a CO2 branch representing an important part of the mixture preparation device (MPD) was designed, assembled and tested. MPD is intended for preparation of CO2-rich mixtures in a sense of accurate setting of flow rates of individual gaseous components through the experimental section with the expansion chamber. In the CO2 branch, the saturated liquid CO2 coming from a cylinder with a dip tube is pressurized by a supercritical pump with a constant flow rate to the pressures of up to 340 bar. The required mass flow of the supercritical CO2 of up to 180 g/h at pressures between 74 bar and 150 bar is accurately tuned with a help of a set of stainless steel capillary tubes with inner diameter of 0.1 mm. Some of the tubes are submerged in a thermostatic bath set to a constant temperature of 70 °C in order to assure the supercritical flow conditions of CO2. Needed lengths of the capillary tubes were determined with a help of a one-dimensional numerical model allowing prediction of both isothermal and adiabatic flow conditions.