Cylindrical flowing-junction cell for the investigation of fluctuations and pattern-formation in miscible fluids

We describe a flowing-junction cell with cylindrical symmetry suitable to investigate fluctuations and pattern formation at the diffusing interface between two miscible phases of a liquid mixture. The continuous outflow of the remixed fluid through a thin slit located at the midheight of the sample allows the preparation of an initially sharp interface. The system can be used in both gravity-stable and unstable conditions. In the stable case, the denser liquid is on the bottom of the cell and mass diffusion is the only active process for remixing the two liquids. Once the flow is stopped, one can investigate nonequilibrium fluctuations during free-diffusion in a binary mixture or double diffusive instabilities in multicomponent mixtures. Two horizontal transparent windows allow vertical mapping of the fluid flow by using shadowgraphy. In the unstable condition, with the denser fluid on top, stopping the radial flow at the interface gives rise to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which drives the denser liquid toward the bottom of the cell. The fact that the cell can maintain the system in the unstable condition shows that it is suitable to perform experiments under microgravity conditions. With respect to other free-diffusion cells, the proposed configuration has the advantage that the interface is extremely stable and flat, and that the experiments can be repeated by just flowing the cell with fresh liquids.