Influence of granular bed parameters on emulsion flow and elution process of oil-in-water emulsion

Emulsion flow through porous structure is used in many processes in the field of chemical engineering. Good examples of practical applications are Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques, soil remediation and treatment of oily wastewater. The emulsion transport in through porous media is not easy to describe, due to rheological behavior of emulsions and porous structure properties. In case of emulsified system flow through porous bed it is possible to observe the retention of oil on porous structure, and reduction of permeability of bed. In the presented study, we tried to investigate the influence of porous bed parameters on oil-in-water emulsion behavior during its flow and elution from porous structure. In experiments we used porous beds with varied particle size range and with different lengths. We measured pressure drop and related permeability changes in time. The turbidimetric and microscopic analysis that we conducted allowed us to check how concentration of emulsion changed during its flow and elution from porous structure.