Model for the prediction of separation profile of oil-in-water emulsion

Stress-Driven Separation of Surfactant-Stabilized Emulsions and Gel Emulsions by Superhydrophobic/Superoleophilic Meshes

“…The fraction of unrecovered oil is very small (less than 2%) and most probably stored in the retentate. A part of unrecovered oil was observed on top of the retentate (creaming) 11 or captured in the mesh structure. Note that the concentration of SDS (25 mM) in water for the preparation of stable O/W emulsions is three times its critical micelle concentration, revealing that a lot of micelles are present in the water phase.…”

“…In this process, the water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion is formed initially, and it is then separated via numerous steps. Eventually, the produced fluid is inverted to form the O/W emulsion. − Thus, petrochemical industries have to overcome the tedious task of oil recovery from emulsions (O/W or W/O) by separation or demulsification. − Demulsification is the process of breaking the emulsions into individual components, and it can be achieved by physical, chemical, or biological techniques. , However, several drawbacks are often encountered, including the use of a large amount of expensive chemicals, high energy consumption, low breaking efficiency, high operation cost, contamination, and long settling time. ,,,, …”

“…15,16 However, several drawbacks are often encountered, including the use of a large amount of expensive chemicals, high energy consumption, low breaking efficiency, high operation cost, contamination, and long settling time. 6,11,13,16,17 For typical oil−water mixtures, the excellent separation efficiency has been achieved by using porous polymeric membranes. 18−20 In addition, for industrial emulsion separation, the pressure-driven membrane-based technologies that enable the size-dependent selective separation due to the sizesieving effect have been employed.…”

Monitoring and Modeling of Creaming in Oil-in-Water Emulsions

“…For instance, in food or pharmaceutical applications, the uniformity of the emulsion may affect the product properties (taste, bioavailability, etc.). On the other hand, in processes where it is required to separate the oil and the water phases, it is important to evaluate the impact of the operating conditions on the separation rate. , …”

“…This model was then extended for multiple population droplets . Modeling of creaming/sedimentation in liquid–liquid systems finds an interest also in gravity separators. , Models including creaming/sedimentation combined with binary and interfacial coalescence phenomena were also employed. , If the creaming/sedimentation process involves changes in the particle/droplet size (e.g., coagulation), the use of the population balance modeling (PBM) framework becomes attractive to describe these coupled phenomena while accounting for the polydisperse nature of the droplets’ size. − For instance, Grimes employed the full distribution to describe batch gravity separation of crude oil-in-water emulsions and concluded that the degree of polydispersity is a key factor in determining the rate of coalescence and separation by sedimentation . Finally, coupling of PBMs with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) constitutes an accurate way to describe the coupled phenomena of diffusion in space and changes in the droplet size, but this approach still remains computationally intensive. , …”