Liquid emulsion membrane technology is used for
extraction of valuable metals from dilute aqueous streams. The system
consists of a liquid membrane, seprating the feed phase from the extract
phase.The extract phase consists of micron size droplets and the key
factor is to prevent coalescence of these droplets during the extraction
process when the membrane is subjected to shear. We feel that this can be
achieved efficiently using polymeric multiblock surfactants. Experiemnts
will be performed to study emulsion stability under shear. Demulsification
using electric field will also be studied. The project involves
mathematical modeling in order to understand the coalscence phenomenon
both under shear and in the electric field.