Effect of particles on foam drainage

Abstract

Despite many applications, the three phase foam is so complicated and far from being fully understood. Drainage is critical to foam decay, so the effect of particles on foam drainage has been investigated in this research to better understand the complex three phase foam. The power law relationship, drainage regime, foam permeability and the residual solid particles were investigated with different particle concentration, particle hydrophobicity and particle size. It was found that the power law index increased with the increasing of particle concentration and particle hydrophobicity, which indicates the transition of drainage regime from node dominated to Plateau border dominated. It was also found that the medium size particles could increase the Plateau border viscous loss more obviously. Foam permeability with different particles was also discussed via fitting the viscous loss of both Plateau border and nodes. Finally, residual solid particle was used to study the particle behaviour during the free drainage after forced drainage. This research could help us better understand the drainage of three phase foam.