Imaging of mass transfer process using artificial fringe deflection

Abstract

A noninterferometric technique used to measure the diffusion coefficients of transparent liquid solutions is reported. This technique uses a white light source and a diffusion cell, with an artificially developed fringe pattern of dark and white stripes at its entrance. As the diffusion process takes place in the cell, the light passing through this nonuniform refractive index medium will bend toward the higher refractive index region, which results in a fringe shift. This shift in the fringe pattern at different times is recorded in a personal computer (PC) using a CCD camera for the calculation of diffusion coefficients. The fringe shift is calculated after skeletonization and linear fit of the captured fringe system. The diffusion coefficient of different concentrations of ammonium dihydrogen phosphate was determined using the proposed technique and the measured values lay within 1% of the reported values. Detailed theoretical and experimental analyses with a comparison of other existing results are discussed.