Performance of an Electrowet-Coalescer
Ashish Bandekar1, George G. Chase2
1Ashish Bandekar, Department of Chemical and Bio-Molecular Engineering, The University of Akron, OH 44325, USA.
2George G. Chase, Department of Chemical and Bio-Molecular Engineering, The University of Akron, OH 44325, USA.
Manuscript received on 13 April 2017 | Revised Manuscript received on 20 April 2017 | Manuscript Published on 30 April 2017 | PP: 175-181 | Volume-6 Issue-4, April 2017 | Retrieval Number: D4961046417/17©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Water in diesel fuel can cause corrosion and reduce engine performance. Mechanical separators are most effective when water in the fuel is in the form of drops larger than about 100 microns but often fuels contain emulsified drops smaller than 100 microns. Pre-coalescence of the emulsified drops to larger drops can improve separation performance of mechanical separators such as coalescing and membrane filters. In this work, a thin-slit radial-flow electrowet-coalescer device was experimentally tested and statistically analyzed to evaluate the performance. The effects of the slit gap distance, the diesel fuel flow rate, and the applied electric potential were evaluated. Application of a full quadratic statistical model and the response optimizer method in Minitab™ shows the applied potential and the gap distance had greater impacts on the average drop size exiting the device than did the flow rate. The analysis determined the best performance occurred with the applied potential of 380V, gap distance of 0.0007m and flow rate of 2ml/s. At these conditions the average drop size increased from 33 microns in the inlet stream to 120 microns in the exit stream. The electric power required to operate the device was less than 1 milliwatt.
Keywords: Electro Wetting, Coalescence, Oil-Water Separation.
Scope of the Article: Performance Analysis