RESEARCH ARTICLE


Formation and Stability Study of Nano-Emulsions: BTX- Separation



Jaydeep M. Barad1, Mousumi Chakraborty1, 2, Hans-Jörg Bart
1 Department of Chemical Engineering, S. V. National Institute of Technology, Surat- 395 007, Gujarat, India;
2 Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, TU Kaiserslautern, Germany; 3Center of Mathematical and Computational Modeling, TU Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany


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Creative Commons License
© 2009 M. Barad et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Center of Mathematical and Computational Modeling, TU Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany; Tel: +49 6312052414; E-mail: bart@mv.uni-kl.de


Abstract

The selective separation of aromatics (benzene, toluene and p-xylene, BTX) from aliphatic (n-heptane) is investigated using simple permeation and facilitated transport emulsion liquid membrane mechanism. The separation performances, represented by the permeation rate and separation factor, are analyzed systematically by varying the operating parameters. One of the major obstacles to the application of emulsion liquid membranes to industrial separations is the stability of emulsion globules. In the present study, stability of emulsion liquid membrane is studied by varying different parameters e.g. surfactant and feed phase concentration, stirrer speed for emulsification. Dispersion destabilisation of emulsion is detected by Turbiscan. Effects of interfacial tension on internal droplets size and size distribution are also systematically investigated. Stable emulsions under optimal conditions are used for the separation of aromatics (BTX) from aliphatic (n-heptane) in a synthetic feed mixture.

Keywords: BTX separation, emulsion liquid membranes, separation factor, droplets size, stability.