Sea-Based Aviation - Bridge Proposal
Abstract
Separation of oil and water from an emulsion is an area of increasing interest because of the everincreasing emphasis on reducing discharge of oily wastewater streams and for managing accidental oil spills. While several methods to separate oil from water are available, the current methods often require elaborate processing steps and have low extraction rates. They are also not very suitable when the emulsion is strongly stabilized by detergent and other ingredients that act as cosurfactants. There is an ever increasing need to develop a simple and a potentially inexpensive process to separate water from aqueous emulsions. The device should also be reusable, thus be regenerated without creating additional wastes. Our goal is to develop a method that will extract pure water from a detergent stabilized aqueous emulsion by integrating the following two different steps. First step will destabilize the emulsion by taking advantage of electro-coalescence thus enabling removal of gross oil content from the waste water. The extracted water will then be passed through a column having alternate layers of hydrophobic glass wool and zeolite. The zeolite will have dual surface properties, in which its surface will be hydrophobic, while its interior will remain oleophilic. Such a system will allow clean water to pass through the interstitial spaces of the particles, while its organic impurities will be collected inside its pores. All these processes will be carried out by paying attention to the recyclability of the separation media by minimizing the production of parasitic wastes of water and energy. In order to facilitate the development of such a process, certain key scientific issues related to the design of the electrodes to carry out electrocoalescence as well as the modification and the characterization of the surfaces of glass wool and zeolite will be addressed. In particular, we propose to develop an electro-coalescence process, in which the electrodes will be coated with a non-fouling dielectric coating. The surfaces of the electrodes will have saw-tooth morphology that will enhance the electric field strength to carry out the electro-coalescence at low overall electromotive force. Once the emulsion is destabilized with the use of insulated electrodes, it will be passed through a column packed with zeolite and glass wools treated with various types of silanes to modify their surface properties. Critical surface modification will be identified that will allow optimal level of extraction of the organic contamination from the emulsion. We will also aim to integrate a process with which the packed column can be regenerated easily after several cycles of water extraction cycles.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 04, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712154
Entities
People
- Manoj K Chaudhury
Organizations
- Lehigh University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy