Investigation on electric agglutination and dispersion characteristics of dispersed droplets for electrical demulsification of corn oil emulsion

The electric demulsification has been widely applied in many engineering fields. In order to explore the electrodynamics mechanism of electro-demulsification for cooking oil emulsion, authors measured the dispersed droplet diameter for W/O corn oil emulsion by using Winner99 particle image analyzer. The electric agglutination and dispersion characteristics were analyzed for dispersed droplets under different voltages. A simplified theoretical model was established according to theoretical analysis and experimental data. The results from theoretical model and experimental data showed that the threshold voltage for electric dispersion was about 5 700 V. The operation voltage should be in range of 1 000-5 000 V for a better water-oil separation efficiency.