Measurement of specific interfacial areas of immiscible fluid interfaces in flow systems

摘要

This invention relates generally to methods of measuring interfacial areas, and more specifically to flow-based methods for measuring the area of the interfaces between two immiscible fluids. The immiscible fluids of interest are various oils and gases that do not have significant solubility, and thus form a distinct fluid phase and exist as agglomerations of varying sizes of blobs or ganglia when added to aqueous solutions. Our invention permits the measurement of such fluid-fluid interface areas for two immiscible fluids present in flow systems. The flow-based method involves the introduction of an interfacial tracer chemical into the flow system in one of two modes: (1) step input, and (2) pulse input. The tracer is soluble to appreciable extent in only one of the two fluids, designated as the carrier fluid phase. The average rate of the tracer migration through the flow system is measured and compared with the rate of migration of a non-adsorbing reference tracer which is added along with the interfacial tracer. The amount of the tracer adsorbed is calculated from the amount of the interfacial tracer adsorbed and from the relative migration rates of the interfacial and reference tracers through the flow system. The total fluid-fluid interfacial area present in the flow system is then calculated based on the amount of the interfacial tracer adsorbed and the interfacial area occupied by each of the interfacial tracer molecules.