Analysis of emulsions concentration changes during imbibition in porous sorbents

Abstract

The stabilized emulsions removal from the aqueous systems is supposed to be an issue as important as the free oil products recovery. This work was conducted to investigate the mechanisms of oil-in-water emulsions sorption in a non-woven oleophilic/hydrophobic material forced by the capillary suction pressure, and the saturation level of such material during this process. It ensures the effective application of the sorbents and facilitates the development of alternative high-performance sorptive materials that can contribute to diminishing of the negative consequences of the aquatic environment contamination. The main aspect investigated in this research work was kinetics of the imbibition process in the porous media to define the optimal time of sorption and the height of the emulsions penetration. The measurement of the dispersed phase concentration changes with the increase in an emulsion front in the porous medium using the nephelometrical method is the advanced approach in the field of assessment of sorbents efficiency. The tendency of the imbibed emulsion concentration decrease versus the height was observed, which depended strongly on the viscosity and the initial composition of a penetrating liquid. The observed process was described by the mathematical model based on Hill equation.

Transport of emulsions in granular porous media driven by capillary force

“…In these experiments, the spontaneous imbibition process was investigated experimentally using the wicking test, as described in details in the publication [6,15]. The used experimental set-up is schematically represented in Figure 1.…”

“…The imbibition as a physical phenomenon occurs in porous structures on the condition that adhesion predominates a mutual force of attraction between molecules in a permeating liquid [3][4][5]. The prediction of the spontaneous imbibition in porous media remains of importance due to its relevance as a fundamental phenomenon in a variety of industrial technologies and in nature: oil recovery and removal of different oil-derivative products from the environment, paper coating, ink penetration process, drug delivery systems, hydrological regime of soil layers, and measuring of contact angle in surface chemistry [1,2,6].…”

Kozeny-Carman theory for modeling of porous granular structures saturation with emulsion during imbibition process

“…the height of 0.020 m. The concentration of an emulsion imbibed in the obtained fragments was measured using nephelometric method and microscopic analysis. This procedure was described in details in the earlier publications [ 10 , 35 ].…”

“…(2003) and Shtyka et al . (2016) [ 10 , 37 ]. In the current research work, the distribution of inner phase droplets in the obtained emulsions was measured by means of an analysis of their microscopic images (microscope Leica DMI3000B, camera Lumenera Infinity1).…”

“…The pore structure of media has an immense importance for the different fields such as mechanics, engineering, and fluid transport processes like infiltration, elution, percolation, and imbibition [ 1 , 3 , 7 – 10 ]. The imbibition is regarded as a spontaneous liquid movement in a porous medium driven by the capillary pressure and counterbalanced by the viscous drag force and the gravity acceleration [ 1 , 11 ].…”