Convection-free Environment Research Articles

Design of an Integrated Heat Dissipation Mechanism for a Quad Transmit Receive Module of Array Radar

A radar system requires a number of high-power components operating in a narrow and convection-free environment. This study aims to develop an integrated heat dissipation system that is suitable for the high-power electronic equipment of radar systems. The proposed heat dissipation mechanism integrates a fluid circulation-type cold plate with a quad transmit receive module. The finite element method in the COMSOL fluid–solid coupling heat transfer analysis software was used to analyze the heat dissipation performance of the cold plate in the proposed mechanism. The Taguchi method was adopted to optimize the cold plate design. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed mechanism can control the temperature equalization and temperature of the system within the specified requirements. The practicality of the proposed mechanism was verified. The findings can serve as a reference for the design of high-power electronic equipment in a heat dissipation system.

Crystallization and Structural Determination of an Enzyme:Substrate Complex by Serial Crystallography in a Versatile Microfluidic Chip.

The preparation of well diffracting crystals and their handling before their X-ray analysis are two critical steps of biocrystallographic studies. We describe a versatile microfluidic chip that enables the production of crystals by the efficient method of counter-diffusion. The convection-free environment provided by the microfluidic channels is ideal for crystal growth and useful to diffuse a substrate into the active site of the crystalline enzyme. Here we applied this approach to the CCA-adding enzyme of the psychrophilic bacterium Planococcus halocryophilus in the presented example. After crystallization and substrate diffusion/soaking, the crystal structure of the enzyme:substrate complex was determined at room temperature by serial crystallography and the analysis of multiple crystals directly inside the chip. The whole procedure preserves the genuine diffraction properties of the samples because it requires no crystal handling.

Data quality assessment of Diffusion Coefficient Measurements in ternary mIXtures 4 (DCMIX4) experiment

Thermodiffusion, which leads to a component separation in a mixture due to the thermal gradient, still does not have an unambiguous microscopic picture. Therefore, experimental studies, especially in convection free environment, are important. As part of the 4th campaign on the DCMIX project, thermodiffusion experiments on three compositions of the toluene-methanol-cyclohexane ternary mixture, on a mixture of fullerene-tetralin-toluene and on a mixture of polystyrene-toluene-cyclohexane have been performed in microgravity conditions on board the International Space Station. A binary mixture of polystyrene-toluene has been filled into the companion cell for the campaign. The Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument (SODI), wich is a two-wavelength Mach-Zehnder interferometer for the ternary mixtures, plus a monochromatic Mach-Zehnder interferometer for the binary mixture, has been used in order to obtain the temperature and the concentration fields in the cells. Precisely, it is a 5-steps phase-shifting interferometry technique which is implemented with SODI, producing by means of laser illumination a set of 5 phase-shifted images of π/2 between them as function of the time. A total of 58 runs of various durations and at different mean temperatures have been conducted. Here, we evaluate the contrast of the interferograms, the quality in the phase stepping, the stability of the thermal regulation of the experiments and the level of environmental disturbances on board the space station during the campaign.

On the Quality of Protein Crystals Grown under Diffusion Mass-transport Controlled Regime (I)

It has been previously shown that the diffraction quality of protein crystals strongly depends on mass transport during their growth. In fact, several studies support the idea that the higher the contribution of the diffusion during mass transport, the better the diffraction quality of the crystals. In this work, we have compared the crystal quality of two model (thaumatin and insulin) and two target (HBII and HBII-III) proteins grown by two different methods to reduce/eliminate convective mass transport: crystal growth in agarose gels and crystal growth in solution under microgravity. In both cases, we used identical counterdiffusion crystallization setups and the same data collection protocols. Additionally, critical parameters such as reactor geometry, stock batches of proteins and other chemicals, temperature, and duration of the experiments were carefully monitored. The diffraction datasets have been analyzed using a principal component analysis (PCA) to determine possible trends in quality indicators. The relevant indicators show that, for the purpose of structural crystallography, there are no obvious differences between crystals grown under reduced convective flow in space and convection-free conditions in agarose gel, indicating that the key factor contributing to crystal quality is the reduced convection environment and not how this reduced convection is achieved. This means that the possible detrimental effect on crystal quality due to the incorporation of gel fibers into the protein crystals is insignificant compared to the positive impact of an optimal convection-free environment provided by gels. Moreover, our results confirm that the counterdiffusion technique optimizes protein crystal quality and validates both environments in order to deliver high quality protein crystals, although other considerations, such as protein/gel interactions, must be considered when defining the optimal crystallization setup.

Measurement of Soret coefficients in a ternary mixture of toluene-methanol-cyclohexane in convection-free environment.

We report on the measurement of Soret (ST) coefficients in the ternary system toluene (T)-methanol (M)-cyclohexane (Ch) onboard the International Space Station in the experiment selectable optical diagnostic instrument/DCMIX2 (Diffusion Coefficients Measurement in ternary mIXtures). Nine experiments were conducted in the range of mean temperatures between 298.15 K and 306.15 K in the mixture with composition 0.62 (T)-0.31 (M)-0.07 (Ch) in mass fractions. A linear dependence of the Soret coefficients on temperature was established for the ternary mixture. It has also been found that, over considered range of mean temperatures, the Soret coefficients of toluene are small and positive, while the Soret coefficients for methanol are negative and, at least, two times larger. The present work also presents a comprehensive study of possible methodologies to process raw data from the Soret experiment in ternary mixtures. All the experiments were processed by seven different schemes and two of them were identified as the most reliable. We also investigate the error propagation and explain the reasons for the discrepancy of the results obtained by different schemes.

Temperature dependence of Soret and diffusion coefficients for toluene–cyclohexane mixture measured in convection-free environment

We report on the measurement of diffusion (D), Soret (S(T)), and thermodiffusion (D(T)) coefficients in toluene-cyclohexane mixture with mass fraction of toluene 0.40 onboard of the International Space Station. The coefficients were measured in the range of the mean temperatures between 20 °C and 34 °C. The Soret coefficient is negative within the investigated temperature range and its absolute value |S(T)| decreases with increasing temperature. The diffusion coefficient for this system increases with temperature rising. For comparison, the temperature dependence of diffusion coefficient was measured in ground laboratory using counter-flow cell technique and revealed a good agreement with microgravity results. A non-direct comparison of the measured onboard Soret coefficients with different systems indicated a similar trend for the temperature dependent behavior. Unexpected experimental finding is that for this system the thermodiffusion coefficient D(T) does not depend on temperature.

A Double Emulsion-Based, Plastic-Glass Hybrid Microfluidic Platform for Protein Crystallization

This paper reports the design and construction of a plastic-glass hybrid microfluidic platform for performing protein crystallization trials in nanoliter double emulsions. The double emulsion-based protein crystallization trials were implemented with both the vapor-diffusion method and microbatch method by controlling the diffusion of water between the inner and outer phases and by eliminating water evaporation. Double emulsions, whose inner and outer environments can be easily adjusted, can provide ideal conditions to explore protein crystallization with the advantages of a convection-free environment and a homogeneous interface. The property of the water-oil interface was demonstrated to be a critical factor for nucleation, and appropriate surfactants should be chosen to prevent protein adsorption at the interface. The results from the volume effect study showed a trend of fewer crystals and longer incubation time when the protein solution volume became smaller, suggesting that the nucleation in protein crystallization process can be controlled by changing the volume of protein solutions. Finally, sparse matrix screening was achieved using the double emulsion-based microbatch method. The double emulsion-based approach for protein crystallization is a promising tool for enhancing the crystal quality by controlling the nucleation process.

Soret Measurement for Multi-Component Hydrocarbon Mixtures from Space Experiment Conducted Onboard FOTON M3 Unmanned Satellite

In an unprecedented experimental investigation, a binary, a ternary and a four-component hydrocarbon mixture at different pressure have been studied in a nearly convection free environment to understand the thermodiffusion process. Experimental investigations of the mixtures have been conducted in space onboard the spacecraft FOTON-M3. The experiment objective was to measure the thermodiffusion coefficient for multi-component hydrocarbon mixtures. Then the experimental results have also been used to test a thermodiffusion model that has been calibrated based on the results of previous experimental investigations. Results showed a good agreement with current theoretical results except for the four-component system where discrepancies were found and discussed.

Observational Evidence for Relationships between the Degree of Aggregation of Deep Convection, Water Vapor, Surface Fluxes, and Radiation

Abstract Tropical deep convection exhibits complex organization over a wide range of scales. This study investigates the relationships between the spatial organization of deep convection and the large-scale atmospheric state. By using several satellite datasets and reanalyses, and by defining a simple diagnostic of convective aggregation, relationships between the degree of convective aggregation and the amount of water vapor, turbulent surface fluxes, and radiation are highlighted above tropical oceans. When deep convection is more aggregated, the middle and upper troposphere are drier in the convection-free environment, turbulent surface fluxes are enhanced, and the low-level and midlevel cloudiness is reduced in the environment. Humidity and cloudiness changes lead to a large increase in outgoing longwave radiation. Cloud changes also result in reduced reflected shortwave radiation. Owing to these opposing effects, the sensitivity of the radiative budget at the top of the atmosphere to convective aggregation turns out to be weak, but the distribution of radiative heating throughout the troposphere is affected. These results suggest that feedbacks between convective aggregation and the large-scale atmospheric state might influence large-scale dynamics and the transports of water and energy and, thus, play a role in the climate variability and change. These observational findings are qualitatively consistent with previous cloud-resolving model results, except for the effects on cloudiness and reflected shortwave radiation. The proposed methodology may be useful for assessing the representation of convective aggregation and its interaction with the large-scale atmospheric state in various numerical models.

Thermodiffusion in multicomponent hydrocarbon mixtures: Experimental investigations and computational analysis

In an unprecedented experimental investigation, a ternary and a four component hydrocarbon mixture at high pressure have been studied in a nearly convection free environment to understand the thermodiffusion process. A binary mixture has also been investigated in this environment. Experimental investigations of the three mixtures have been conducted in space onboard the spacecraft FOTON-M3 thereby isolating the gravity-induced convection that otherwise interferes with thermodiffusion experiments on Earth. The experimental results have also been used to test a thermodiffusion model that has been calibrated based on the results of previous experimental investigations. It was found that with an increase in the number of components in the mixtures, the performance of the thermodiffusion model deteriorated. Computational analysis was also made to estimate the possible sources of errors. Simulations showed that the vibrations of the spacecraft could influence the estimates of thermodiffusion factors. It was also found that they are sensitive to slight variations in the temperature of the mixture.

Effects of a Magnetic Field on Lysozyme Crystal Nucleation and Growth in a Diffusive Environment

Tetragonal hen egg white lysozyme crystals were grown in agarose gel under the influence of a 7 T homogeneous and static magnetic field. The use of agarose, gels, and polymer solutions avoids crystal sedimentation and buoyancy-driven convection providing a diffusive mass transport environment. Under these conditions, 100% of lysozyme crystals grown in 0.02% (w/v) agarose can be oriented by a 7 T magnetic field. When the agarose concentration was increased, the number of oriented crystals decreased. The results are explained by the compromise between the effect of the magnetic field and the chemical effects due to the interaction between protein and agarose, because it is known that agarose modifies the nucleation rate of lysozyme crystals. When the chemical effect of agarose was removed, it appears clear that a homogeneous and constant magnetic field influences both nucleation and growth of lysozyme tetragonal crystals in a convection-free environment. Both effects depend on supersaturation and exposure time.

Microfluidic chips for the crystallization of biomacromolecules by counter-diffusion and on-chip crystal X-ray analysis

Microfluidic devices were designed to perform on micromoles of biological macromolecules and viruses the search and the optimization of crystallization conditions by counter-diffusion, as well as the on-chip analysis of crystals by X-ray diffraction. Chips composed of microchannels were fabricated in poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS), poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) and cyclo-olefin-copolymer (COC) by three distinct methods, namely replica casting, laser ablation and hot embossing. The geometry of the channels was chosen to ensure that crystallization occurs in a convection-free environment. The transparency of the materials is compatible with crystal growth monitoring by optical microscopy. The quality of the protein 3D structures derived from on-chip crystal analysis by X-ray diffraction using a synchrotron radiation was used to identify the most appropriate polymers. Altogether the results demonstrate that for a novel biomolecule, all steps from the initial search of crystallization conditions to X-ray diffraction data collection for 3D structure determination can be performed in a single chip.

TIM Crystals Grown by Capillary Counterdiffusion: Statistical Evidence of Quality Improvement in Microgravity

The capillary counterdiffusion method is a very efficient crystallization technique for obtaining high-quality protein crystals. This technique requires a convection-free environment, which can be achieved using either gelled solutions, very thin capillaries, or microgravity conditions. To study the influence of a convection-free environment on protein crystal quality and to evaluate two different experimental implementations to achieve it, we have made a comparative analysis of crystals grown by capillary counterdiffusion in agarose, a convective-free environment on Earth, and crystals grown in microgravity at the International Space Station. Thermotoga maritima triose phosphate isomerase (TIM) was chosen as a model for this study. The statistical analysis reveals a significant improvement for the crystals grown in microgravity in terms of their R-merge, B-value, and mosaicity, but the statistical evidence is insufficient to show a similar benefit for the resolution and mean intensity parameters. These results are quite surprising because it is known that, unlike gels, the noisy microgravity scenario offered by the ISS cannot sustain a convection-free environment on the time scale of days required for protein crystallization experiments.

Mathematical model for diffusion of a protein and a precipitant about a growing protein crystal in microgravity.

Equations are presented that model diffusion of a protein to the surface of a growing crystal in a convection-free environment. The equations apply to crystal growth solutions that contain both a protein and a protein precipitant. The solutions are assumed ternary and the equations include all four diffusion coefficients necessary for the full description of the diffusion process. The four diffusion coefficients are assumed constant. Effects of crystal/solution moving boundary and the effect of a protein adsorption barrier at the crystal interface are included. The equations were applied to the system lysozyme chloride + NaCl + H2O, which has served as the primary model system for the study of crystal growth of proteins and for which there are now published ternary diffusion coefficients. Calculated results with and without the inclusion of cross-term diffusion coefficients are compared.

Modeling of Emulsion Droplet Vaporization and Combustion Including Microexplosion Analysis

Liquid-phase models for vaporization and combustion of emulsified water-hydrocarbon droplets have been developed that assume diffusive transport in the liquid phase and take into account the transient heating period. These models have been coupled to vaporization and combustion gas-phase models through a new interface model which has been developed lo account for vaporization with finite rate supply of each component to the droplet surface. The inclusion of liquid phase mass transfer allows the simulation of droplet vaporization and combuslion in the diffusion and distillation limits. Experimental data of water-heptane droplet combustion in convection-free environment were reasonably predicted by the model. Simulations in the diffusion and distillation limits were used to interpret experimental data on water-hydrocarbon emulsion droplet microexplosion in near stagnant conditions. Comparison of estimates of droplet temperature at microexplosion to homogeneous nucleation theory predictions showed good agreement only for combustion in the distillation limit, implying the existence of microdroplet dispersion for the analyzed experimental data.

Combustion of unsupported water-in- n-heptane emulsion droplets in a convection-free environment

Results of an experimental study are reported for combustion of unsupported n-heptane droplets emulsified with water burning while levitated in microgravity where the effects of external convection are negligible. The results are compared to a pure heptane droplet and a mixture of two miscible liquids (methanol/dodecanol) burning under similar low convection conditions. The effect of water concentration on flame luminosity and sooting tendency, preferential vaporization of the emulsion components, and the role of the emulsifying agent in promoting disruptive burning were examined. The photographs showed less sooting for the emulsions relative to pure heptane, and a preferential vaporization process was revealed from the image analysis by an abrupt change in the vaporization rate. A period exists near the end of burning during which the droplet diameter is nearly constant, followed by a disruptive burning event. A quasi-steady complex chemistry analysis with variable properties shows that a frozen evaporation mode occurs after an initial delay period during which heptane is evaporating from the droplet. Predicted and measured burning rates are in good agreement during this later period.

Protein crystal growth of Ribonuclease A and Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor aboard the MASER 3 rocket

The growth of bovine Ribonuclease A (RNase A) and bovine Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor crystals has been studied simultaneously aboard MASER 3, a sounding rocket, and in a ground reference unit. For crystallization to take place within the 7 min and 15 s of microgravity during the flight, both macro- and macro-seed techniques of supersaturated protein solutions were employed. It was found that the convection-free environment of the MASER 3 protein crystal growth apparatus produced more and larger crystals than the ground reference unit. The RNase A crystals grown in microgravity diffracted X-rays to 1.06 Å resolution, approximately 0.2 Å higher resolution than previously observed in terrestrially grown RNase A crystals. The refined structure based on these data contains new features not seen in the lower resolution structures.