Premix membrane emulsification by using a packed layer of glass beads

Premix membrane emulsification is a very efficient process. Its prime disadvantage, depth fouling of the pores, could be avoided by using instead of a membrane, a packed layer of small particles, that can be resuspended and cleaned in suspension after emulsification. The effectiveness of emulsification with this system was measured. The energy density approach was extended to predict the droplet size as a function of pressure drop, bed height, and number of passes. Three different extensions to the model were compared, and a reasonable description was found for the resulting droplet size in all the experiments (167) for a four-parameter model. It is expected that the function derived can be helpful to describe conventional membrane homogenization, since a first comparison showed that the data obtained with the particle bed are similar to those obtained in literature with membranes. © 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2008