Study On Foam Separation Of Surfactant In Aqueous Solution

Foam separation is one of the rapidly developed separations among the few decades. The purpose of this paper is to investigate foam separation of surfactants in aqueous solution.Critical micelle concentrations (cmc) of four kinds of surfactants CTAB, DTAC, CPC and SDS were determined and the effects of temperature on cmc were discussed. It was found that with the increase of temperature, the cmc of CTAB, DTAC, CPC inceased, but the cmc of SDS did not change obviously.Foam separation was proceeding in foam separation column. The enrichment (E) and recovery (R) were calculated and used to discuss the foam separation. The effects of the operating factors such as air flow rate, surfactant feed concentration, temperature, the amount ofβ-CD, PEG-2000, PEG-6000 etc. on foam separation were investigated. It was found that the surfactant enrichment decreases with the increase of the above mentioned parameters, but the recovery is in the opposite. In the best situation, the value of enrichment and recovery can reach 12.36 and 84.07% respectively.A mathematical model of the foam fractionation of surfactants was developed. Some parameters were assumed reasonably. Under reasonable initial and boundary conditions, the differential equations had been solved by means of matlab software. Effects of superficial air velocity and feed concentration on enrichment were predicted by the model. The results had good agreement with the experiment observations. The main reason of the difference is the predigestion during the adsorption and the assuming of some parameters when calculate the equations.