Abstract Proposal No: 9612322 Proposal Type: Investigator Initiated Principal Investigator: Darsh T. Wasan Affiliation: Illinois Institute of Technology This grant is awarded through the Separations and Purification Program subelement of the Interfacial, Transport and Separations Program of the Chemical and Transport Systems Division. The principal investigator is Dr. Darsh Wasan of the Illinois Institute of Technology. The objective of the research is to understand the underlying mechanisms behind the phenomenon of demulsification, where droplets of oil(or water) flocculate and eventually coalesce to form separate oil and water phases. The research involves the development of novel techniques to measure characteristics of the demulsification process. These include the development of a "surface force" apparatus based on differential interferometry to measure film disjoining pressure, the development of interfacial rheometry and tensiometry, piezo-imaging spectroscopy to characterize film rupture and droplet coalescence, and hydroaccoustic spectroscopy to differentiate droplet flocculation from the coalescence. Demulsification is a widely used process in the chemicals and petroleum industry. For example, oil-recovery processes lead to the formation of emulsions, and demulsification is important in separating the oil from water. Emulsions formed in the cleanup of oil spills and hazardous materials also need to be broken so that the chemical additives used in extraction can be recycled. The phenomenon is complex and there is a need to understand the underlying scientific issues.
