Investigation of outlet diameter effect on emulsion separation efficiency in rectangular separators

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to conduct experimental studies of oil -water emulsion separation in a rectangular separator in the range of velocities along the device working area from 1.43 to 2.5 m/s. The efficiency of emulsion separation is determined by an experimental method based on measuring the density of a two-phase liquid, provided that the density of each component of the mixture is previously determined. The authors propose to use a device with U-shaped elements to increase its performance when separating oil-water emulsions. The device under study including two rows of U-shaped elements consists of one complete separation stage. The authors have conducted experimental studies of the device with U-shaped elements on the "oil-water" system, during which the efficiency of emulsion separation was evaluated. It was detemined that the proposed device provides the highest efficiency of emulsion separation of 68% when the diameter of the holes intended for the exit of the heavy phase equals to 2.5 mm in the range of emulsion velocities from 1.43 to 2.5 m/s. The conducted experimental studies will allow to use a turbulence model for calculation in the programs like Ansys Fluent or FlowVision, which will most adequately describe the separation process of similar emulsions. The experiments have proved the possibility of obtaining high values of efficiency. Therefore, the correct selection of technological parameters (average flow rate, concentration) and the size of the characteristic elements of the proposed device will allow to specify the design of a rectangular separator, for example, to calculate the number of stages to achieve the required separation efficiency or to determine the size of the separation elements.