Coalescing filter for separation of water-oil emulsions

Abstract

© International Research Publication House Today there are a large number of methods for extracting oil products from wastewater, but each of them is effective only in a certain range of concentration of oil products. In this regard, the development of processes for the purification of oily wastewater from enterprises of the machine-building industry is an urgent task. In this work, we carried out the separation of stable water-in-oil emulsions by the coalescence method using filter media made of granular and porous PTFE. According to the results of the study, it was found that after filtration of the emulsion through a filtering load of PTFE, the concentration of oil products in the filtrate decreases. Moreover, with a decrease in the particle size of the filtering load, the concentration of oil products in the filtrate decreases more intensively. The efficiency of removing oil products with porous filter media is higher than with granular filter media. The degree of removal of oil particles from the emulsion and the filtration rate depend on the granule size and porosity of PTFE, the smaller the granule size, the higher the efficiency. Also, the efficiency of removing oil products depends on the size of the particles of the dispersed phase of emulsions, and on the value of the ζ-potential of the emulsion as a measure of repulsion between the particles of the dispersed phase, that is, an indicator of the stability of the system. It has been established that the gradient arrangement of filter media from 0.5 to 3 mm increases the retention capacity and filtration rate. The proposed filter media can be used for efficient separation of oil and oil emulsions with particle sizes from 0.2 to 10 microns and with a concentration of oil products up to 90 g / m3,.