The effect of silica nanoparticles on phase inversion of liquid-liquid dispersions in a stirred vessel was investigated. The studied systems were toluene dispersed in water and vice versa. In the first set of experiments, phase inversion behavior of systems without Silica nanoparticles was evaluated and subsequent experiments were conducted in the presence of the nanoparticles. For this purpose, Silica nanoparticles of different concentrations (0.01, 0.03, 0.05,
0.07 wt%) were dispersed in water. The nanofluid stability was examined using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectrophotometer. The results indicated that increase in silica nanoparticle concentrations up to 0.07 wt% led to increase in agitation speed of phase inversion 43-53.5% and 38.5-45% in the case of O/W and W/O dispersions, respectively. Consequently, the tendency of dispersions to inversion diminished as nanoparticle concentrations increased. Finally, 0.05 wt% of silica nanoparticle was selected as the optimum on the range studied.
Luhning RW, Sawistowski H., in Proceedings of the International Solvent Extraction Conference, Gregory JG, Evans B, Weston PC, Eds., Society of Chemical Industry, London, 1971
Juswandi J, Thesis M, Oklahoma State University, 1995