Using ultrasound to separate oil, gas, and water
Résumé
Separating oil, gas, and water is a slow, and therefore expensive, process, especially if the gas bubbles and oil droplets are very small. Yet, with increasingly strict regulations on filtered sea water quality, it is a process of major importance to most oil and gas industry. Using customised ultrasonic devices, we have been able to drive microbubbles through saturated fluids, forcing the bubbles to cluster and form microfoams at equal distances. These microfoams were then driven out of the fluid. In this presentation highspeed photography footage of this process will be shown. Ultrasound-assisted separation is a cheap technique that may have applications on a much bigger scale.
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