The role of emulsifiers in turbulent drop breakup – bridging fluid mechanics, chemical engineering, and colloid science to provide fundamental insight

Turbulent emulsification is of large industrial relevance.

Moreover, there is a substantial fundamental scientific interest in how turbulent stresses deform viscous interfaces in the presence of emulsifiers. Recently, numerical drop breakup experiments have greatly advanced the understanding. However, a critical piece of the puzzle is missing. These recent high-impact fluid mechanics studies do not consider how emulsifiers behave at interfaces.

More specifically, previous studies neglect emulsifier kinetics and important aspects of interfacial rheology.

This project aims to build fundamental understanding of turbulent drop breakup in the presence of technically relevant emulsifiers and devices.

This is achieved by pushing the state-of-the-art of numerical drop breakup simulation methodology by integrating it with insights from colloidal science.

The project is transdisciplinary, combining research groups with expertise on turbulent emulsification devices, fluid mechanics and colloidal science. WP1 performs traditional emulsification experiments.

WP2 uses high-speed drop breakup visualization experiments to understand how breakup probability and morphology is influenced by various emulsifiers.

WP3 implements interfacial rheology physics into the state-of-the-art numerical breakup experimental methodology, using WP2-data to validate it. WP4 utilizes the established model to generate fundamental and applied understand of turbulent emulsification.