Treatment of Fluid in Fluid Emulsion by External Electric Field

Abstract

Separation of fluid in fluid emulsions has been found to be induced by applying a non-uniform electric field. Electric current leads to move oil particles in emulsion contact each other and also create bigger oil drops by induction of negative charge, then the oil moves upward due to density difference and can be measured. Based on these experiments, about 92 % benzene deemulsify from the emulsion in lower than 30 s, which indicates that the mutual contact of oil droplets through thin water layers is necessary for the rapid deemulsification. All this evidence strongly suggests that the applied electric field causes the rearrangement of surface charges on oil droplets, which results in the reduction of the height of an energy barrier for the coalescence of the droplets. In the present paper, benzene is used as disperse phase and water is used as continuous phase.