Premium
Gravity induced coalescence in emulsions with high volume fractions of dispersed phase in the presence of surfactants
Author(s) -
Mazumdar Meenakshi,
Roy Shantanu
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.15803
Subject(s) - pulmonary surfactant , coalescence (physics) , drop (telecommunication) , volume fraction , emulsion , chemistry , chromatography , gravity separation , volume (thermodynamics) , chemical engineering , mass fraction , analytical chemistry (journal) , materials science , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , telecommunications , biochemistry , physics , astrobiology , computer science , engineering , metallurgy
We report studies on the effect of volume fraction and surfactant concentration on the kinetics of destabilization of emulsions under the influence of gravity. Model oil‐in‐water emulsions, designed to mimic crude oil–water emulsions, were prepared with varying volume fractions of dispersed oil but nearly identical normalized initial drop size distributions. The gravity separation process was observed by periodically withdrawing samples, and examining the droplet size distribution under the microscope. Experiments were performed for three volume fractions of dispersed phase and two surfactant concentrations (0.4 and 1.6% by weight). At higher oil fractions (20%) and a lower surfactant concentration (0.4%), it was observed that although the rate of coalescence increased, the actual oil separation was delayed. At higher surfactant concentrations (1.6%), the dominant factor in suppressing destabilization is the rate of drop to interface coalescence. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 63: 4379–4389, 2017