Continuous Generation and Air-Assisted Atomization of Fuel Oil-Water-Emulsions

In the present work a simple and inexpensive device for continuous generation of emulsified liquid fuels has been developed, which can for instance be used for NO-reduction in gas turbine application. The emulsification process was based on liquid-in-liquid atomization, hence water and oil were injected into a cell by means of pressure-swirl nozzles. The use of a nozzles for each stream ensured, in contrary to just one nozzle for one of them, fine emulsification in wide control ranges. The emulsions were sufficiently stable so that no surfactant was required. Jets of water-in-oil emulsions disintegrated easily and significantly faster than the pure substances or oil-in-water emulsions. This property of water-in-oil emulsions leads to significantly finer air-assist atomization.