Modeling oil-water separation with controlled wetting properties

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Hauptverfasser: Gavazzoni, Cristina, Silvestrini, Marion, Brito, Carolina
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2020
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author Gavazzoni, Cristina
Silvestrini, Marion
Brito, Carolina
author_facet Gavazzoni, Cristina
Silvestrini, Marion
Brito, Carolina
contents Several oil-water separation techniques have been proposed to improve the capacity of cleaning water. With the technological possibility of producing materials with antagonist wetting behavior, as for example a substrate that repeal water and absorb oil, the understanding of the properties that control this selective capacity has increased with the goal of being used as mechanism to separate mixed liquids. Besides the experimental advance in this field, less is known from the theoretical side. In this work we propose a theoretical model to predict the wetting properties of a given substrate and introduce simulations with a 4-spins cellular Potts model to study its efficiency in separating water from oil. Our results show that the efficiency of the substrates depends both on the interaction between the liquids and on the wetting behavior of the substrates itself. The water behavior of the droplet composed of both liquids is roughly controlled by the hidrophobicity of the substrate. To predict the oil behavior, however, is more complex because the substrate being oleophilic do not guarantee that the total amount of oil present on the droplet will be absorbed by the substrate. For both types of substrates considered is this work, pillared and porous with a reservoir, there is always an amount of reminiscent oil on the droplet which is not absorbed by the substrate due to the interaction with the water and the gas. Both theoretical and numerical models can be easily modified to analyse other types of substrates and liquids.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2012_11562
institution arXiv
publishDate 2020
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling oil-water separation with controlled wetting properties
Gavazzoni, Cristina
Silvestrini, Marion
Brito, Carolina
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Several oil-water separation techniques have been proposed to improve the capacity of cleaning water. With the technological possibility of producing materials with antagonist wetting behavior, as for example a substrate that repeal water and absorb oil, the understanding of the properties that control this selective capacity has increased with the goal of being used as mechanism to separate mixed liquids. Besides the experimental advance in this field, less is known from the theoretical side. In this work we propose a theoretical model to predict the wetting properties of a given substrate and introduce simulations with a 4-spins cellular Potts model to study its efficiency in separating water from oil. Our results show that the efficiency of the substrates depends both on the interaction between the liquids and on the wetting behavior of the substrates itself. The water behavior of the droplet composed of both liquids is roughly controlled by the hidrophobicity of the substrate. To predict the oil behavior, however, is more complex because the substrate being oleophilic do not guarantee that the total amount of oil present on the droplet will be absorbed by the substrate. For both types of substrates considered is this work, pillared and porous with a reservoir, there is always an amount of reminiscent oil on the droplet which is not absorbed by the substrate due to the interaction with the water and the gas. Both theoretical and numerical models can be easily modified to analyse other types of substrates and liquids.
title Modeling oil-water separation with controlled wetting properties
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.11562