A numerical investigation of the unsteady motion of a deformed drop released freely in another quiescent liquid contaminated by surfactant is presented in this paper. The finite difference method was used to solve numerically the coupled time-dependent Navier-Stokes and convective-diffusion equations in a body-fitted orthogonal coordinate system. Numerical simulation was conducted on the experimental cases, in which MIBK drops with the size ranging from 1.24 mm to 1.97 mm rose and accelerated freely in pure water and in dilute sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) aqueous solution. The applicability of the numerical scheme was validated by the agreement between the simulation results and the experimental data. Both the numerical and experimental results showed that the velocitytime profile exhibited a maximum rising velocity for drops in SDS solutions, which was close to the terminal velocity in pure water, before it dropped down to a steady-state value. The effect of the sorption kinetics of surfactant on the accelerating motion was also evaluated. It is also suggested that introduction of virtual mass force into the formulation improved obviously the precision of numerical simulation of transient drop motion.
Two nonfoaming bubble separation techniques, air stripping and solvent sublation, are presented and discussed in order to recover butyl acetate (BA) from discharged wastewater after solvent extraction of penicillin. Results show air stripping is not suitable for the recovery of BA from the wastewater. Axial concentration of BA had a noted maximum point along the column. In contrast, solvent sublation is very effective to recover BA from the wastewater. In solvent sublation experiments, axial concentration of BA along the column first increased and then decreased from the bottom to the top because of two primary mass transport processes. One is the transport by adsorption or attachment to ascending bubbles, and the other is by dispersion at water-solvent interface and by water film in organic solvent layer. In order to elucidate the high removal efficiency in solvent sublation, the microstructure of the wastewater was studied with optic microscope, which was showed to be an emulsion of BA in water at large concentration of BA. Solvent sublation can be successfully used in the removal of BA from its emulsion in the wastewater. The surface tension of simulated solution composed of lysozyme and BA was studied to understand mutual effect of biological materials and BA. Results show that lysozyme affects the adsorption of BA at air-water interface and they may form a complex between BA and lysozyme molecules.
