Prediction of globule size and globule size distribution of emulsion liquid membrane in a pulsed packed column

Abstract

In this work, the emulsion globule size of an ELM system in a pulsed packed column in different surfactant concentrations was studied for the first time. The emulsion liquid membrane consists of kerosene as a diluent and Span 80 as a surfactant. The effect of surfactant concentration and hydrodynamic parameters, including pulse intensity and flow rates of the dispersed phase and continuous phase, on globule size, was investigated. Based on the results, increasing the concentration of Span 80 up to 3.5 % v/v results in 58–64 % reduction in the Sauter mean diameter (D32) and narrowing the size distribution of the globules. Operating parameters such as pulse intensity and flow rates of continuous and dispersed phases have been investigated so that the influence of flow rates was considerably smaller than the effect of pulse intensity on the globule size distribution. Also, the results showed that with increasing pulse intensity, D32 decreased by 29 %. A new empirical correlation for D32 calculation was also suggested, Featuring 4.91 % average absolute relative error (AARE). Finally, the globule size distribution was predicted using the normal probability function and the dimensionless correlations accurately predicted their parameters and the measured %AARE of α and β were 8.3 and 3.4, respectively.