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Non-invasive morphological characterization of cellular loofa sponges using digital microscopy and micro-CT

  • Iman Mohammed ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Ricardo Bernhardt , Markus Schubert and Uwe Hampel
Published/Copyright: July 14, 2021
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International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering
From the journal International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering Volume 19 Issue 10

Abstract

Loofa sponge is a naturally-grown and decomposable material providing high specific surface area and high porosity for potential application as an environmentally-friendly catalyst carrier. In this work, cellular samples of various loofa types cut from different fiber network regions of the fruits were studied in detail using non-invasive imaging techniques. Digital microscopy was applied to characterize the cellular fiber network, which revealed a honeycomb structure in the core region and a sandwich structure in the wall region. Furthermore, reconstructed three-dimensional (3D) morphological images of the loofa samples obtained via micro-tomography (micro-CT) were utilized to extract the geometrical properties cell size, window diameter and strut thickness as well as porosity and volume-specific surface area. The reconstructed loofa samples revealed porosities of about 92% and specific surface areas up to 2057 m2/m3. In addition, the geometrical properties of manufactured solid foams (ceramic and polyurethane) were also determined via micro-CT and compared with loofa sponge. Finally, the different characteristic cell dimensions were employed to predict the porosity and specific surface area with available geometrical correlations. Deviations between correlation and measurement data (±16%) can be attributed to the peculiarity of the loofa cellular fiber network, which is somewhat different from the tetradecahedral-shaped geometry commonly used as the basis for most of the available correlations.

Keywords: digital microscopy; fiber network; loofa sponge; micro-CT; morphological properties; specific surface area
Corresponding author: Iman Mohammed, Chair of Imaging Techniques in Energy and Process Engineering, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

The author I. Mohammed acknowledges the Graduate Academy TU Dresden for the habilitation research scholarship. Also Acknowledges Dip. -Ing. Simon Hampel from Institute for construction Materials TU Dresden for establishing the loofa density measurement. The author I. Mohammed thanks to Prof. Larachi from university Laval for his support for the single-phase pressure drop measurement.

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: None declared.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

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Received: 2020-09-06
Accepted: 2021-06-23
Published Online: 2021-07-14

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ijcre-2020-0167
Keywords for this article
digital microscopy; fiber network; loofa sponge; micro-CT; morphological properties; specific surface area

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Review
  3. Nanoreactors: properties, applications and characterization
  4. Articles
  5. Numerical simulation of the particle-wall collision strength and swirling effect on the performance of the axial flow cyclone separator
  6. Development and experimental validation of reactor kinetic model for catalytic cracking of eugenol, a potential bio additive fuel blend
  7. Effect of flue gas components on the NO removal and element mercury oxidation performance of Mn-modified low-temperature catalyst
  8. CFD analysis and RSM optimization of obstacle layout in Tesla micromixer
  9. Non-invasive morphological characterization of cellular loofa sponges using digital microscopy and micro-CT
  10. Residence time distribution studies on recycle reactor with recirculation
  11. The influence of membrane electrode assembly’s pressing on PEM fuel cell’s performance
  12. Oxidative hydrolysis of Fe(Ⅱ) in the process of hydrothermal synthesis of hematite
  13. Parametric numerical study and optimization of mass transfer and bubble size distribution in a gas-liquid stirred tank bioreactor equipped with Rushton turbine using computational fluid dynamics
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