Difference between revisions of "Team:NPU-China/Hardware"

The theme of our project this year is Manufacture, so we have been trying to contrive a series of hardwares to model the industrial production and enhance our method. However, the gap does exist between the reality and our expectation.

List of what we use

By listing the main items we have purchased and actually used, we hope to provide some experience and inspiration for the future teams wishing to have HW productions.

Hardware Design

Our system is mainly composed of two parts: reaction part and concentrated crystallization part. The overall idea is that the reaction part provides the bacteria with appropriate reaction temperature, adequate oxygen and the prevention of bacterial precipitation. After a certain period of time, the reaction solution will be transferred to the concentrated crystallization part, where the concentration of the production is increased by the reverse osmosis membrane; the temperature of the reaction solution is lowered by the device, and the acrylic acid is finally crystallized.

1）Reaction Part

The reaction part mainly uses miniature DC self-priming pump, foam machine, acrylic material container, aluminum hollow cylinder (built-in heating wire) and NTC thermistor temperature sensor.

Instruction：When the system starts, the pump will continue to pump the upper reaction solution, which will blend a large number of air bubbles after passing through the foam machine, and then will be pumped back from the bottom reaction container. Furthermore, since the reaction vessel is cylindrical and the bubbles are continuously rising, the purpose of stirring the reaction solution and providing sufficient air can be achieved. Simultaneously, with the help of the temperature sensor, the system will be able to control heating wire inside the aluminum alloy cylinder, so that the reaction solution can maintain a suitable temperature range. Also, the poor thermal conductivity of acrylic materials is conducive to insulation. (We had considered heating the air mixed with the reaction solution at the foaming machine so that the reaction solution pumped back to the reaction vessel would be blended with a large amount of hot air, which could replace the additional heating device, but due to the safety and energy efficiency, this thought was given up.)

2）Concentrated Crystallization Part

After the reaction has been performed for one cycle, the reaction part stops, and the reaction solution is thus introduced into the concentrated crystallization part and the work begins.
In this part we mainly use the acrylic material container, aluminum alloy cold source (including collection function), reverse osmosis membrane, pressure pump, temperature sensor, water level sensor and semiconductor cooling film, etc.

Fig9 3D design drawing

Instruction:Concentrated crystallization part is relatively independent. As long as the system detects that the internal water level is higher than the reverse osmosis membrane, the part will start to work. With the pressure pump and reverse osmosis membrane, the water of the reaction solution will be continuously extracted, which continues to improve the concentration of acrylic acid. And the semiconductor cooling film will help keep the solution temperature below the melting point of acrylic acid, which is 286K. After many rounds of cycles, acrylic acid crystals can be collected on the bottom cooling source (but mixed with engineered bacteria).

3）System Controlling