Surfactant transport onto a foam lamella

PFAS distribution in cascade derived foam at wastewater treatment plants: The role of non-linear drainage, collapse induced enrichment, and implications for removal

Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) enrichment in foam was investigated for the first time at a wastewater treatment plant cascade. A novel sampling device was utilized to allow spatial and temporal heterogeneity in PFAS concentrations and liquid content to be characterized. Concentrations of 8 PFAS compounds were normalized to liquid content and fit to a power law model revealing strong correlation (R2 = 0.91) between drainage induced enrichment and PFAS molar volume. Short chain PFAS such as perfluorobutanoate (PFBA) exhibited minor to no enrichment factors in foam (0.24-5.9) compared to effluent concentrations across the range of foam liquid contents (0.28-6.24 %), while long chain compounds such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) became highly enriched with factors of 295-143,000. A conceptual model is proposed to explain higher than expected enrichment of more surface-active PFAS relative to liquid content, which combines continuous partitioning of PFAS to air bubbles during foam formation with additional partitioning during non-linear drainage and foam collapse, both controlled by their affinity for the air-water interface. Scoping calculations suggest the majority of PFOS and other long chain PFAS may be removed if foam is continuously collected with potential to reduce waste volume under economic barriers for current destructive technologies.

Analysis of a model for surfactant transport around a foam meniscus

A model developed by Bussonnière & Cantat [1] is considered for film-to-film surfactant transport around a meniscus within a foam, with the transport rate dependent upon film-to-film tension difference. The model is applied to the case of a five-film device, in which motors are used to compress two peripheral films on one side of a central film and to stretch another two peripheral films on the central film's other side. Moreover, it is considered that large amounts of compression or stretch are imposed on peripheral films, and also that compression or stretch might be imposed at high velocities (relative to a characteristic velocity associated with physico-chemical properties of the foam films themselves). The actual strain that results on elements within each film might differ from the imposed strain, with the instantaneous film length coupled to the actual strain determining the amount of surfactant currently on each film (and hence also the amount of surfactant that has transferred either from or onto films). Quite distinct surfactant transport behaviour is predicted for the stretched film compared with the compressed one. In particular, when a film is stretched sufficiently at high enough velocity, surfactant flux onto it is predicted to become extremely 'plastic', increasing significantly.

Stability of surfactant-laden liquid film flow over a cylindrical rod

The stability of surfactant-laden liquid film flow over a cylindrical rod is examined in creeping flow limit using standard temporal linear stability analysis. The clean film flow configuration (i.e., in absence of surfactant) is well-known to become unstable owing to Rayleigh-Plateau instability of cylindrical liquid interfaces. Previous studies demonstrated that for a static liquid film (i.e., zero basic flow) coating a rod, the presence of interfacial surfactant decrease the growth of Rayleigh-Plateau instability, but is unable to suppress it completely. Further, the presence of interfacial surfactant is known to introduce an additional mode, referred to as surfactant mode in the present work. To the best of our knowledge, the stability of surfactant mode has not been analyzed in the context of cylindrical film flows. Thus, we reexamined the stability of surfactant-laden cylindrical liquid film flow to analyze the stability behavior of the above said two modes when the basic flow is turned on. The present study reveals that the incorporation of basic flow in stability analysis leads to the complete suppression of Rayleigh-Plateau instability due to the presence of interfacial surfactants as compared to the partial suppression obtained for a stationary liquid film. Three nondimensional parameters appear for this problem: Bond number (denoted as Bo) which characterizes the strength of basic flow, Marangoni number (denoted as Ma) which signifies the presence of surfactant, and ratio of rod radius to film thickness denoted as S. In creeping flow limit, the characteristic equation is quadratic with one root belonging to Rayleigh-Plateau mode and the other to surfactant mode. We first carried out an asymptotic analysis to independently capture the eigenvalues corresponding to both the modes in limit of long-wave disturbances. The long-wave results show that the Rayleigh-Plateau instability is completely suppressed on increasing the Marangoni number above a critical value while the surfactant mode always remains stable in low wave-number limit. The continuation of long-wave results to arbitrary wavelength disturbances show that the suppression of Rayleigh-Plateau instability mode still holds, however, the surfactant mode becomes unstable at sufficiently high values of Marangoni number. Further, this surfactant mode instability shifts toward low wave numbers with critical Marangoni number for instability scaling with wave number in a particular fashion. We used this scaling and carried out an asymptotic analysis to capture this instability in low wave-number limit. Depending on S and Bo, we observed the existence of a stable gap in terms of Ma where both the eigen-modes remain stable. Our results indicate that for a given Bond number, the width of stable gap in terms of Ma decreases with decrease in S and the stable gap vanishes when S is sufficiently small. The effect of increasing Bond number (or equivalently, the strength of basic flow) is found to be stabilizing for the film flow configuration.

Effect of surfactant redistribution on the flow and stability of foam films

The viscous froth model for two-dimensional (2D) dissipative foam rheology is combined with Marangoni-driven surfactant redistribution on a foam film. The model is used to study the flow of a 2D foam system consisting of one bubble partially filling a constricted channel and a single spanning film connecting it to the opposite channel wall. Gradients of surface tension arising from film deformation induce tangential flow that redistributes surfactant along the film. This redistribution, and the consequent changes in film tension, inhibit the structure from undergoing a foam-destroying topological change in which the spanning film leaves the bubble behind; foam stability is thereby increased. The system's behaviour is categorized by a Gibbs-Marangoni parameter, representing the ratio between the rate of motion in tangential and normal directions. Larger values of the Gibbs-Marangoni parameter induce greater variation in surface tension, increase the rate of surfactant redistribution and reduce the likelihood of topological changes. An intermediate regime is, however, identified in which the Gibbs-Marangoni parameter is large enough to create a significant gradient of surface tension but is not great enough to smooth out the flow-induced redistribution of surfactant entirely, resulting in non-monotonic variation in the bubble height, and hence in foam stability.

A review of aqueous foam in microscale

In recent years, significant progress has been achieved in the study of aqueous foams. Having said this, a better understanding of foam physics requires a deeper and profound study of foam elements. This paper reviews the studies in the microscale of aqueous foams. The elements of aqueous foams are interior Plateau borders, exterior Plateau borders, nodes, and films. Furthermore, these elements' contribution to the drainage of foam and hydraulic resistance are studied. The Marangoni phenomena that can happen in aqueous foams are listed as Marangoni recirculation in the transition region, Marangoni-driven flow from Plateau border towards the film in the foam fractionation process, and Marangoni flow caused by exposure of foam containing photosurfactants under UV. Then, the flow analysis of combined elements of foam such as PB-film along with Marangoni flow and PB-node are studied. Next, we contrast the behavior of foams in different conditions. These various conditions can be perturbation in the foam structure caused by injected water droplets or waves or using a non-Newtonian fluid to make the foam. Further review is about the effect of oil droplets and particles on the characteristics of foam such as drainage, stability and interfacial mobility.

Theoretical analysis of the performance of a foam fractionation column

A model system for theory and experiment which is relevant to foam fractionation consists of a column of foam moving through an inverted U-tube between two pools of surfactant solution. The foam drainage equation is used for a detailed theoretical analysis of this process. In a previous paper, we focused on the case where the lengths of the two legs are large. In this work, we examine the approach to the limiting case (i.e. the effects of finite leg lengths) and how it affects the performance of the fractionation column. We also briefly discuss some alternative set-ups that are of interest in industry and experiment, with numerical and analytical results to support them. Our analysis is shown to be generally applicable to a range of fractionation columns.