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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 12: Poster: Colloids and Complex Fluids

CPP 12.9: Poster

Monday, March 7, 2016, 18:15–21:00, Poster B2

Preparations for DCMIX-3: data analysis from SODI experiments aboard the ISS — •Thomas Triller and Werner Köhler — Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany

The ISS offers a unique environment for experiments which require microgravity on long timescales. Especially thermodiffusive processes in multicomponent mixtures can be difficult to measure on earth, due to gravitational instabilities. Therefore, a collaboration of several international teams aims to establish within the framework of the ESA DCMIX project a set of reliable benchmark data for selected ternary fluid mixtures measured aboard the ISS. These experiments are done with SODI (Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument), a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The resulting interferograms contain data about the local refractive index, and therefore the local composition of the fluid, across the whole sample cell (also called thermodiffusion cell). The refractive index can be extracted from the interferograms via a Phase Unwrapping method. The DCMIX-3 experiment (the system Water/Ethanol/Triethylene-glycol) was scheduled to fly to the ISS in October 2014. Unfortunately, a catastrophic failure during takeoff destroyed all samples aboard the Orb3 transport. A new flight is planned for April 2016. In the meantime, data from the previous DCMIX-1 experiment (Dodecane/Isobutylbenzene/Tetralin) allow to verify the analysis methods which were implemented for DCMIX-3. These methods make use of the fundamental similarity of all optical experiments involving a thermodiffusion cell.