Coalescence and

These hazards are reduced drastically by desalting crude oils, a process which consists of coalescing and decanting the fine water droplets in a vessel by using an electric field of 0.7 to 1 kV/cm. 

Impingement demister systems are designed to intercept liquid particles before the gas outlet. They are usually constructed from wire mesh or metal plates and liquid droplets impinge on the internal surfaces of the mist mats or plate labyrinth as the gas weaves through the system. The intercepted droplets coalesce and move downward under gravity into the liquid phase. The plate type devices or vane packs are used where the inlet stream is dirty as they are much less vulnerable to clogging than the mist mat. 

Hydrocylones have become common on offshore facilities and rely on centrifugal force to separate light oil particles from the heavier water phase. As the inlet stream is centrifuged oil particles move to the centre of the cyclone, coalesce and are drawn off upwards, while the heavier water is taken out at the bottom. 

It is quite clear, first of all, that since emulsions present a large interfacial area, any reduction in interfacial tension must reduce the driving force toward coalescence and should promote stability. We have here, then, a simple thermodynamic basis for the role of emulsifying agents. Harkins [17] mentions, as an example, the case of the system paraffin oil-water. With pure liquids, the inter-facial tension was 41 dyn/cm, and this was reduced to 31 dyn/cm on making the aqueous phase 0.00 IM in oleic acid, under which conditions a reasonably stable emulsion could be formed. On neutralization by 0.001 M sodium hydroxide, the interfacial tension fell to 7.2 dyn/cm, and if also made O.OOIM in sodium chloride, it became less than 0.01 dyn/cm. With olive oil in place of the paraffin oil, the final interfacial tension was 0.002 dyn/cm. These last systems emulsified spontaneously—that is, on combining the oil and water phases, no agitation was needed for emulsification to occur. 

External and internal loop air-lifts and bubble column reactors containing a range of coalescing and non-Newtonian fluids, have been studied (52,53). It was shown that there are distinct differences in the characteristics of external and internal loop reactors (54). Overall, in this type of equipment... 

Coalescence and Phase Separation. Coalescence between adjacent drops and between drops and contactor internals is important for two reasons. It usually plays a part, in combination with breakup, in determining the equiHbrium drop si2e in a dispersion, and it can therefore affect holdup and flooding in a countercurrent extraction column. Secondly, it is an essential step in the disengagement of the phases and the control of entrainment after extraction has been completed. 

The exact amount of lubricant required for extmsion depends on the design of the extmder, the reduction ratio (ie, ratio of the cross-sectional preform area to the cross-sectional area in the die), and the quality of the lubricant. A low lubricant content results in a high extmsion pressure, whereas a high lubricant content causes a poor coalescence and generates defects in the extmdate. 

L tex Foa.m Rubber. Latex foam mbber was the first ceUular polymer to be produced by frothing. (/) A gas is dispersed in a suitable latex 2) the mbber latex particles are caused to coalesce and form a continuous mbber phase in the water phase (7) the aqueous soap film breaks owing to... 

Plasticization, whether internal (by copolymerization) or external (with additives), is also extremely important for proper performance at the time of apphcation. The ease of coalescence and the wetting characteristics of the polymer emulsion particles are related to their softness and the chemical nature of the plasticizer. 

The slope of the water solubiUty curves for fuels is about the same, and is constant over the 20—40°C temperature range. Each decrease of 1°C decreases water solubiUty about 3 ppm. The sensitivity of dissolved water to fuel temperature change is important. For example, the temperature of fuel generally drops as it is pumped iato an airport underground hydrant system because subsurface temperatures are about 10 °C lower than typical storage temperatures. This difference produces free water droplets, but these are removed by pumping fuel through a filter-coalescer and hydrophobic barrier before deUvery iato aircraft. 

An unstabilized high surface area alumina siaters severely upon exposure to temperatures over 900°C. Sintering is a process by which the small internal pores ia the particles coalesce and lose large fractions of the total surface area. This process is to be avoided because it occludes some of the precious metal catalyst sites. The network of small pores and passages for gas transfer collapses and restricts free gas exchange iato and out of the activated catalyst layer resulting ia thermal deactivation of the catalyst. 

Gravitational force favors the separation of gas from liquid in a disperse system, causing the bubbles to rise to the hquid surface and the liquid contained in the bubble walls to drain downward to the main body of the liquid. Interfacial tension favors the coalescence and ultimate disappearance of bubbles indeed, it is the cause of bubble destruction upon the rupture of the laminae. 

When bubbles are produced in clouds, as by a porous disperser, their behavior during rising is further comphcated by interadion among themselves. In addition to the tendency for small bubbles to coalesce and large ones to disintegrate, there are two additional... 

The difference between the curves for pure water and seawater again illustrates the significance of small concentrations of solute with respecl to bubble behavior. In commercial bubble columns and agitated vessels coalescence and breakup are so rapid and violent that the rise velocity of a single bubble is meaningless. The average rise velocity can, however, be readily calculated from holdup correlations that will be given later. 

As mentioned earlier, surfactants and ionic solutions significantly affect mass transfer. Normally, surface affects act to retard coalescence and thus increase the mass transfer. For example, Hikata et al. [Chem. Eng. J., 22, 61-69 (1981)] have studied the effect of KCl on mass transfer in water. As KCI concentration increased, the mass transfer increased up to about 35 percent at an ionic strength of 6 gi7i/l. Other investigators have found similar increases for hquid mixtures. 

Inteifacial tension. A high interfacial tension promotes rapid coalescence and generally requires high mechanical agitation to produce small droplets. A low interracial tension allows drop breakup with low agitation intensity but also leads to slow coalescence rates. Interfacial tension usually decreases as solubility and solute concentration increase and falls to zero at the plait point (Fig. 15-10). 

Information on the coefficients is relatively undeveloped. They are evidently strongly influenced by rate of drop coalescence and breakup, presence of surface-active agents, interfacial turbulence (Marangoni effect), drop-size distribution, and the like, none of which can be effectively evaluated at this time. 

Emulsions and Dispersions The mixture of hquids leaving a mixer is a cloudy dispersion which must be settled, coalesced, and separated into its liquid phases in order to be withdrawn as separate liquids from a stage. For a dispersion to Freak into separate phases, both sedimentation and coalescence of the drops of the dispersed... 

Gravity Settlers Decanters These are tanks in which a liqmd-liquid dispersion is continuously settled and coalesced and from wriich the settled liquids are continuously withdrawn. They can be either horizontal or vertical. Figure 15-24 shows some typical horizontal decanters. For an uninstrumented decanter the height of the heavy-phase-liquid leg above the interface is balanced against the height of the hght-hquid phase above the interface, Eq. 15-50. 

Coalescers The small drops of a fine dispersion may be caused to coalesce and thus become larger by passing the dispersion through a coalescer. The enlarged drops then settle more rapidly. Coalescers are mats, beds, or layers of porous or fibrous sohds whose properties are... 

Figure 15-25 shows a combination device containing coalescers and both hydrophobic and hydrophilic separating membranes. Coalescers... 

Holdup and Flooding At this point it is useful to introduce the concepts of holdup and flooding in column contactors. It is normal practice to select the phase which preferentially wets the internals of the column as the continuous phase. This then allows the dispersed phase to exist as discrete droplets within the column. If the dispersed phase were to preferentially wet the internals, this could cause the dispersion to prematurely coalesce and pass through the column as rivulets or streams which would decrease interfacial area and therefore column efficiency. 

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