T0043-P Validation of Electro-Hydrodynamic Gas-Liquid Phase Separation in Microgravity

The lack of the gravity-driven gas-liquid phase separation in microgravity has severely compromised a wide range of space technologies, ranging from liquid pumps to volumetric techniques for sampling liquids and to electrolytic oxygen generators. Unexpectedly, while carrying out experiments on polarized suspensions in microgravity aboard the NASA aircraft in 2003, the appearance of a gas-liquid phase separation caused by the application of high-gradient electric fields was observed. Based on these observations and supported by a NASA grant, a novel method for the field and flow driven concentration and removal of air bubbles from fluids in microgravity has been devised; and is based on the discovery of collective electro-hydrodynamic (EHD) phenomena in ensemble of bubbles driven by the interplay of electric and hydrodynamic forces.