A review of applications of handling particular materials under microgravity

Abstract

Microgravity research has been carried out by researchers around the world for many years. By using space flight experiments (the International Space Station) and ground-based experiments (the Microgravity Sounding Rocket, a landing tower, and weightless aircraft), the investigations under microgravity conditions are thought to be beneficial to human life in terms of chemical, physical, and biological aspects, and more. It has become a very important tool for scientific research and industrial applications today. This paper reviews the work in this area with special reference to the applications in chemical engineering processes such as particle conveying and flow and material science under different gravity levels, including microgravity environments. It has been demonstrated that gravity has a strong effect on particle conveying and flow. Reduced gravity can make materials more cohesive, which further influences particle conveying. Actually, the effect of gravity can be ignored when the gravity level is less than 0.0001g. In the field of material science, the microgravity environment can accelerate the formation process of materials, like crystal growth, and then lead to a better structure.