Gopalakrishnan's Dispersion Technology Receives Patent
U.S. patent issued, EU patent pending
Dr. Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan, UMRF Ventures Assistant Professor & Graduate Program Coordinator in Mechanical Engineering, has been issued a U.S Patent for his dry powder dispersion technology. He has also filed and has a pending EU patent.
The dispersion of dry, cohesive micro-and nanosized powders has wide applications ranging from medical and environmental science to manufacturing technology. Being able to disperse the dry powder at a stable concentration over periods of time (hour to several hours) is challenging to achieve, which we attempt to address with a novel dry powder dispersion technology. A portable, cost effective and simple dry powder dispersion device that uses ultrasonic energy for continuous feeding of aerosol particles is covered in U.S. Patent 11,358,112 Systems and methods for dispersion of dry powders developed in Dr. Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan’s lab at the University of Memphis.
The dry dispersion of cohesive micro and nanopowders has applications in inhalation toxicology, powder processing, spread of pollutants, soil erosion and notably in additive manufacturing. Dry dispersion of powders is often favored for its relative simplicity in process equipment, ability to preserve chemical purity and crystalline structure from the powder to aerosol phase, solvent-free and room-temperature operation. Powders are dispersed by injecting the constituent particles into a main gas flow that has sufficient kinetic energy to break them up into smaller particles and transport them as aerosols.
However, this process presents itself with several challenges. Powders composed of sub-10 mm particles have high inter-particle and particle-wall adhesion energy. This has important consequences for nanopowders that are highly cohesive and therefore very difficult to detach from the walls of process equipment during transport in tubing and while dispersion with moving parts such as blades, mixers or fans. In this work, ultrasonic pressure fluctuations are used to apply mechanical energy to lift particles off surfaces without moving parts. Ultrasonic energy is used here to create standing waves that liftoff particles to be sampled for aerosol generation.