About the project
The aim of this project is to develop and verify, against available experimental data, a mathematical model capable of predicting the typical behaviour and time scales of separating water and oil emulsions.
The separation of colloidal systems under the influence of gravity is a physical phenomenon encountered in numerous industrial processes throughout food, chemical, petroleum, and hydrometallurgical industries.
Gravity settlers are widely used as they are a cost-effective and energy-efficient method for the separation process. Their designs often rely on empirical and semi-empirical models based on the Stokes’ Law. This often results in oversized equipment and a lack of information on the internal effects on separation efficiencies.
Due to the complexity and high costs of physical experimentation, mathematical modelling and simulation are used for analysing and designing gravitational separators. Despite advanced understanding of the processes that define precipitation of liquid droplets in a liquid environment, the results of experimental studies still demonstrate significant differences from theoretical predictions.
Moving droplets induce hydrodynamic flows in an ambient phase, which typical dimensions much exceed the sizes of droplets. Movements of many droplets result in intensive interactions of droplets, collisions, and coalescence of droplets. Since setting of larger droplets occurs in higher setting rates, mechanical stirring, hydrodynamic flows and vibrations are added to stimulate more collisions and to stimulate droplet growth.
There is no clear understanding on how to calculate or estimate the frequency of droplet collisions and the rate of coalescence that move in a liquid medium. This deficiency becomes a major obstacle for the development of accurate practical models for the gravity settlers.