Modeling of the imbibition of polypropylene fiber cloth with emulsions
Sustainable process-product development & green chemistry
Sustainable & Clean Technologies-I: Extraction & Remediation (T1-4P)
Keywords: porous media, emulsions, imbibition, soaking,
Every spill of oil and oil derivatives is a tremendous hazard for the natural environment. Emergencies and negligence in the elimination and reduction of systemic source impacts lead to significant economic losses. Due to multiple long-lasting effects, their size is difficult to determine explicitly. Hard to estimate are also social costs, which encompass reduced use of contaminated areas or even their long-term degradation and complete elimination from economic use. Society and economy suffer significant losses, among the others, due to reduction in water use. Undoubtedly, the impact of these pollutants on people’s health not limited directly to the contaminated area should be taken into account.
Emulsion sewage that contains emulsified substances, mainly oil derivatives: oils, fats and lubricants, are extremely arduous to the natural environment. They disturb the processes of both biological and mechanical sewage treatment and have a negative effect on sewerage network. The presence of oils hampers water treatment, decreases water suitability for drinking, economic use and recreation. So, oil must be removed from sewage and especially from industrial wastewater. This is connected with regeneration of spent oils to obtain products neutral for the natural environment. In a typical emulsion sewage, spent cooling and lubricating emulsions generated by machine and metallurgical industry, the content of mineral oil can reach even dozens of kg per cubic meter.
One group of sorbents used to adsorb oil and oil derivatives from water are the polypropylene fibers. They are used in the form of cloth, pillows or sleeves. Their sorption properties are dependent on the thickness of fibers and their structure. The rate of sorption is also dependent on the properties of the emulsions – their viscosity and concentration.
This study concerns absorption of emulsions by hydrophobic polypropylene pneumothermic fiber cloth. These were oil-in-water systems, in which a disperse phase was kerosene, sunflower oil and machine oil. Investigations covered the observations of imbibition of the fiber cloth strips immersed in the tested emulsions.
The tests showed first of all that during soaking not only the liquid that formed a disperse phase but also the emulsion was absorbed. Additionally, it was found that the rate of soaking depended on the disperse phase viscosity and its content in the emulsion.
For predicting of the imbibition rate the theoretical model was developed. There were taken into account the viscous and gravitational forces acting on the fluid rising along the woven strip. The satisfactory agreement between theoretical prediction and theoretical data was found.
See the full pdf manuscript of the abstract.
Presented Monday 17, 13:30 to 15:00, in session Sustainable & Clean technologies - I: Extraction-Remediation (T1-4P).
