Application of pulsed electric current in immiscible liquid and droplet processing

ABSTRACT

Electromagnetic, chemical and thermo-mechanical processing can be applied to the fabrication of polymeric materials which react to external fields such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, electric or magnetic fields to optimise properties. In this article, the application of the pulsed electromagnetic field in an immiscible liquid phase is reviewed. The droplet behaviour of polymer emulsion's liquid phases is enriched with significant complex phenomena. In emulsion, droplet break-up, size evolution, coalescence, coarsening, flocculation and interfacial interaction among droplets are assessed as a function of processing.

This review was submitted as part of the 2018 Materials Literature Review Prize of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining run by the Editorial Board of MST. Sponsorship of the prize by TWI Ltd is gratefully acknowledged.

KEYWORDS:

• Pulsed electric current
• electromagnetic field
• immiscible liquid
• droplet processing
• coalescence
• flocculation

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to her lead supervisor Prof Rongshan Qin for his constant guidance, encouragement and support. She is also grateful to her colleagues including departmental doctoral and postdoctoral researchers for their support as well as to the reviewers of this article for their constructive feedback.

Copyrights acknowledgements

Figure 1 and 2, reprinted from Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 396(1), C. Zhang, K. Khoshmanesh, A. Mitchell, K. Kalantar-zadeh, Dielectrophoresis for manipulation of micro/nano particles in microfluidic systems, 401–420, Copyright (2010), with permission from Springer Nature.

Figure 3, reprinted from Food Hydrocolloids, 25(3), M. Desse, J. Mitchell, B. Wolf, T. Budtova, Droplet deformation and break-up under shear: Hydrocolloid solution vs. suspension of starch granules, 495–502, Copyright (2011), with permission from Elsevier.

Figure 4, reprinted from Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, 26(6), T. Tsukada, T. Katayama, Y. Ito, M. Hozawa, Theoretical and experimental studies of circulations inside and outside a deformed drop under a uniform electric field, 698–703, Copyright (1993), with permission from the Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan.

Figure 5 and 6, reprinted from International Journal of Science and Research, 4(5), E. B. F. Alkateb, S. Nath, D. A. K. Nema, Review of phase separation of water in oil emulsion using electro-pulse inductive coalesce, 2223–2227, Copyright (2015), with permission from the Editor.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Shalahin Sultana http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0270-5373

Additional information

Funding

The author acknowledges the PhD Studentship from The Open University to carry out this literature review as part of her doctoral research project.