Liquid-liquid dispersion under pulsed electric fields in a horizontal cell

Liquid-liquid reactors require good agitation and large interfacial area, as does liquid-liquid extraction equipment. Conventionally, droplet dispersion is obtained by mechanical agitation, for example, in stirred tanks. An alternative approach involving much less energy consumption is to promote droplet dispersion and motion by applying an electric field. The formation and initial motion of drops provide the focus for this study. The apparatus used was a nearly horizontal rectangular cell (38*10*10 cm) equipped with parallel electrode plates along the two sides of the cell as well as a stainless steel nozzle (0.71 mm diameter) connected to a high-voltage pulsed electric power supply. The experiments were carried out in this liquid-liquid contactor by generating a series of single droplets of distilled water from the grounded nozzle and observing their subsequent motion in the viscous continuous phase under the influence of the pulsed electric field. As the applied voltage was increased, the formed droplets were reduced in size and showed repulsion and some upwards scattering: the droplet velocity near the nozzle was greatly increased by the field, with the droplets decelerating as they moved away from the nozzle.<>