ANÁLISE DA DESESTABILIZAÇÃO DE EMULSÕES ÓLEO-EM-ÁGUA POR MÉTODO SIMPLIFICADO DE IMAGEM DE VÍDEO.

The study of emulsions is important for the development of various industrial products and processes in the chemical and food industries. However, one difficulty is to understand the process of instability and the time period it takes. Emulsion and suspension destabilization is associated with two main phenomena: gravitational separation (flotation or sedimentation) and particle size variation (coalescence, aging of Oswald, phase inversion, flocculation). All these phenomena can lead to significant changes in the final product and it is very important to be able to detect them, and as far as possible, to control them at an advanced stage. The objective of this work was to present a video imaging instrument for the rapid and non-intrusive monitoring in the destabilization of dispersed systems of oil-in-water emulsions, being relevant the fact that the equipment used in the experiment is simple and composed of few items of easy obtaining and handling. The imaging device is coupled with image analysis software which is capable of monitoring the flotation or sedimentation kinetics of the emulsions by means of the corresponding intensity profiles of vertical levels of color in the different phases. An octane / water emulsion with Triton X-100 surfactant was used in proportions of 2 and 4 times the critical micelar concentration (CMC). In addition, the experiments were redone with the same emulsions, but adding 5% NaCl. The addition of a salt, in this case sodium chloride, is particularly useful for finding differences in the speed of aging of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]