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Essay / Application of continuity theory - 657
In the theoretical part of the work, there was an in-depth review of the literature on the subject. Many aspects of emulsion stability and phenomena associated with phase separation (creaming, sedimentation, flocculation, coalescence) have been described. Fundamental issues related to traffic (engineering) theory were also presented. In the experimental part of the work, studies on the stability of emulsions were carried out. The dispersed phases included canola oil with concentrations of 10–40 wt% while the continuous phases were aqueous solutions of gelatin with concentrations of 0.1–0.4 wt%. The variable parameter was also the emulsification time (1, 2, 3 and 5 minutes). Emulsions were prepared by adding small portions of dispersed phase to a continuous phase while stirring using a 250-watt Braun manual homogenizer. The first test bench included a Nikon optical microscope connected to a video camera. The microscope made it possible to measure the diameters of the droplets of the dispersed phase. The second testbed was Turbiscan Lab Expert (France, Formulaction) – a device used to measure backscattered light in colloids, which formed on dispersed phase droplets. The obtained data – complete creaming profiles (backscatter versus sample height at different times) – were used to characterize the stability of the emulsions. By observing the analogy between the behavior of vehicles in traffic and the movements of dispersed phase droplets, in the current master's thesis models taken from the Continuity theory (derived from traffic engineering) has been proposed to describe the phenomenon of phase separation of emulsions. Traffic engineering is a field that uses mathematical models (macroscopic and microscopic) to describe vehicle movements (among other things). Microscopic models represent the...... middle of paper...... traffic vapor state. The model proposed by Greenberg described the dispersed phase particle velocities in a wider range, the higher the initial oil concentration and emulsifier content in the emulsion. Thanks to microscopic measurements, it was found that the studied emulsions belonged to coarse and unstable two-phase liquids. liquid systems with average droplet diameters of approximately 10 to greater than 30 μm. Increasing concentrations of oil and gelatin resulted in higher values of the average particle diameters of the internal phase. It was also proven that of all the factors examined, emulsification time had the least impact on the stability of emulsions. After all, there was an optimal emulsification time of two minutes, during which the final height of the aqueous phase was the smallest and the final thickness of the concentrated emulsion layer the greatest...