Liquid-Liquid Flow

The flow of two immiscible liquids ( ) presents a wide variety of flow

patterns ranging from relatively quiescent stratified flow to regimes in which

intense mixing between the phases occurs.

The more recent studies are illustrated in Figure 1 [Arirachakaran et al. (1989)].

As suggested by this figure the nature of liquid-liquid flows is highly complex, with

full stratification occurring at low velocities and full dispersion at velocities. This

makes prediction of these flows a real challenge.

Given the complexities of the flow, there has been a concentration of work on

either fully-separated (stratified, and to a lesser extent, annular) flows on the one

hand and fully-dispersed flows on the other. In the latter type of flow conditions

under which there is an inversion between the continuous and the disperse

phases is of great interest. Below the hydrodynamics of two-phase liquid flows

and phase inversion are briefly discussed.

Hydrodynamics

Separated flows

This type of flow occurs when two liquids are in laminar flow. The parallel flow of

two immiscible fluids in a two-dimensional channel is a classical problem

discussed by Bird et al. (1960). Since the flows are laminar in both phases

separated flows can be treated theoretically and solutions are in good agreement

with experimental observations. In the case of flow in cylindrical tubes analytical

solutions are not possible. However numerical solutions are being obtained that

can be extended to turbulent flow by using suitable turbulence models. As the

flow rates of the phases are increased, waves appear at the interface that, upon

turbulence intensification, lead to dispersed flow.

Dispersed flows

With increased turbulence breakage of one phase into the other takes place, as

shown in Figure 1. As dispersion is formed flow behavior becomes dependent on

dispersion viscosity. Water in oil dispersions behave as Newtonian fluid up to

10% by volume water. Above this fraction they show significant pseudoplastic

behavior; as mass flow increases, viscosity decreases. It has been found that the

smaller the drop size is, the higher the viscosity.

Figure 1. Flow patterns defined by Arirachakaran et al. (1989).

Models for fully-dispersed flows are discussed by Arirachakaran et al. (1989),

who found good agreement between predicted and observed results in the fully-

dispersed region provided the correct viscosity is used. There is some evidence

that the presence of droplets can sometimes suppress the turbulence of the

continuous phase.
Phase Inversion

In liquid-liquid systems, it is of crucial importance to know the conditions

governing phase inversion. This is defined as the point at which the continuous

phase becomes the dispersed one and vice versa. Thus, an inversion point

would represent a change from an oil-in-water to a water-in-oil dispersion. The

condition that triggers this change is the increase of dispersed phase hold-up.

This is accompanied by an increase in dispersion viscosity. It has been observed

that viscosity of the mixture reaches a peak near the inversion point, with the

mixed viscosity often being much higher than that of the more viscous phase. As

the hydrodynamic conditions of pipe flow and continuous (or batch) stirred tanks

are different, conditions governing phase inversion in these two cases are not the

same.

Phase inversion of dispersions in stirred tanks systems has received

substantially more attention than that in pipe systems. Typical data for phase

inversion in stirred vessels are illustrated in Figure 2. Conditions for phase

inversion depend on the physical properties of the system and on hydrodynamic

conditions. Therefore, for a given tank configuration and a given system the

inversion point will depend on phase hold-up and stirring speed, as shown

inFigure 2. The graph shows an upper and lower band for phase inversion,

rather than a single line. This means there is hysteresis. Thus on increasing

stirrer speed to create inversion, a lower stirrer speed on lower volume fraction of

the specified phase is required for reversion of the inversion process. In addition,

the inversion band is not the same when starting from an oil-dispersed system or

a water-dispersed one. It should be noted that if mass transfer is taking place,

the conditions for phase inversion will most certainly change due to the presence

of solute at the interface.

 Figure 2. Inversion curves for binary immiscible liquid-liquid

systems. Source: McClarey and Mansouri (1978).

There is considerable controversy about the effect of wettability of the containing

vessel (and also of the agitator) on phase inversion, but there are no general

conclusions on this respect, although it has been suggested that wettability may

only be significant at low stirring rates.

In pipe systems, the mechanisms of mixing leading to inversion are much more

complex and, from the point of view of the experimentalist, uncontrolled. There is

little information in the literature about phase inversion in pipes. Unlike the case

of stirring speed, there seems to be no effect of mixture velocity or droplet size

on phase inversion. Phase fraction and temperature, on the other hand, seem to

be the key parameters.