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Interfacial Phenomena

In Proximity Lies the Power

A knowledge of the particle size distribution of disperse systems is of paramount importance in plant design.

For this purpose, significant improvements in detection (optical sondes, needle sondes, grid sensors, tomographic methods) have been achieved in the last years, but at the same time improvements in particle size evaluation up to online-capable algorithms resulted.
However, modeling of variable particle size requires detailed knowledge of interfacial phenomena such as repulsion and fluid outflow.
In the past, two concepts were pursued here

  • The first approach dealt with the contact of two suspended particles that were either pushed onto each other or one particle freely rising onto another.
  • The second approach dealt with only one particle encountering a planar boundary layer.

While in the first approach effects such as relative particle position still influenced the measurement results, in the second approach statistically relevant and automated measurement results can be obtained with respect to repulsion, film outflow and coalescence time. This enables a first creation of a database, which in the future will allow closer conclusions based on data evaluation on the system-dependent coalescence phenomenon, which has not yet been understood.

At the same time, this offers an excellent opportunity to match modern simulation methods (molecular dynamics) or simplified interfacial models.

Droplet coalescence