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Chemical Engineering & Technology, Vol.22, No.7, 617-619, 1999
Interfacial phenomena in suspensions
Recent resuspension experiments suggest that a possible interfacial tension exists between pure fluid and suspension consisting of the same fluid and heavy, small solid beads of identical size and density. Since little is known about interfacial phenomena in suspensions we experimentally investigated the formation and expansion of a suspension drop in the same fluid. To our surprise, the motion of the droplet exhibits all phenomena demonstrated by the classical experiments in which vortex rings of one liquid are created in another from drops falling from rest under gravity [1]. Membranes formed even when the concentrations of particles were smaller than 5%. We also observed the breaking of the torus by Rayleigh-Taylor instability and the formation of a cascade of new rings. Two drops falling one behind the other penetrate and do not lose their distinct nature for several moments until they finally mix and move as a single drop. Larger drops typically create a long cylindrical tail of particles throughout the vessel that contains the clear liquid. This column is unstable and it breaks and forms small 'capillary droplets', By making use of the investigation by Kojima et al. [2] we were able to estimate the interfacial tension from the growth of the torus. Here we present the experimental findings and estimates for the interfacial tension between a suspension drop and pure fluid as a function of concentration.