Emulsification in turbulent flow: 3. Daughter drop-size distribution

Area of Science:

• Colloid and Surface Science
• Fluid Dynamics
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Emulsification is crucial in many industrial processes.
• Understanding drop breakage dynamics in turbulent flow is essential for controlling emulsion properties.
• Existing models often fail to accurately predict daughter drop size distribution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically investigate the effects of oil viscosity, interfacial tension, and energy dissipation rate on daughter drop size distribution during turbulent emulsification.
• To develop and validate a new numerical procedure for analyzing drop size evolution.
• To clarify the relative importance of drop breakage rate and daughter drop size distribution on mean diameters.

Main Methods:

• Experiments using monodisperse oil-in-water emulsions generated by membrane emulsification.
• Emulsification performed in a narrow-gap homogenizer operating in turbulent regime.
• Monitoring of drop size distribution changes over emulsification time.
• Analysis using a novel numerical procedure based on daughter drop formation probability.

Main Results:

• Daughter drop formation is strongly dependent on the dispersed phase viscosity.
• Different scaling laws describe experimental results for low and high viscosity oils.
• The proposed numerical procedure accurately describes the evolution of key drop size distribution characteristics.

Conclusions:

• The study provides critical insights into the mechanisms of drop breakage in turbulent flow.
• The developed numerical procedure offers an accurate method for predicting emulsion evolution.
• Findings contribute to better control and optimization of emulsification processes.