Use of viscosity as an in-line diagnostic for high internal phase emulsion generation
AssigneeShell Oil Company
InventorsRonald M. Bass, Thomas F. Brownscombe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A lightweight absorbent foam is produced using a high internal phase emulsion (HIPE), the production of which incorporates the use of capillary viscosity measurements as an in-line diagnostic for HIPE quality. The in-line diagnostics yield measurements of viscosity slope and amplitude. These measurements offer several advantages for monitoring emulsion quality, including stable high resolution measurement of hardware-independent parameters of the whole flow, without the need for sampling.
Claims11
An in-line apparatus for determining power law viscosity parameters in an emulsion process wherein the emulsion behaves as a power law fluid comprising:
- a mixer for receiving an oil phase and a water phase and converting said phases into an emulsion;
- means for injecting said oil phase into said mixer;
- means for injecting said water phase into said mixer;
- capillary means for receiving the emulsion output of said mixer, said capillary means comprising segments having at least two different diameters;
- means for maintaining said emulsion at a constant temperature in said capillary means;
- means for measuring the pressure drop across a selected length of each of said different diameter capillary segments;
- means for measuring the flow rate of said emulsion;
- and
- computer means for calculating a parameter of said emulsion.
A process for determining power law viscosity parameters for an emulsion behaving as a power law fluid, comprising the steps of:
- injecting an oil phase into a mixer;
- injecting a water phase into said mixer;
- combining said oil phase and said water phase in said mixer to produce an emulsion;
- providing a capillary for receiving the emulsion output of said mixer, said capillary having segments of different diameters;
- maintaining said emulsion at a preselected temperature as it flows through said capillary;
- measuring the pressure drop across selected lengths of each of said different diameter segments;
- measuring the flow rate of said emulsion through said capillary;
- and
- calculating the power law viscosity parameters .mu..sub.o and n of said emulsion using the equation ##EQU11## where ##EQU12## is the pressure drop per unit length of capillary in Pascal/meter, Q.sub.e is the emulsion volume flow rate in meter.sup.3 /sec,
- n is the power law exponent,
- R is the capillary radius in meters, and
- .mu..sub.o is the emulsion viscosity at a shear of 1/sec in Pascal-Sec.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.