Modeling of water-in-oil Pickering emulsion nanofiltration - Influence of temperature

Abstract Recently, the feasibility of Pickering emulsion membrane filtration has been shown to be a promising procedure for efficient catalyst recovery in continuous liquid/liquid multiphase catalysis. In this work, the impact of temperature on the permeation of the pure solvent 1-dodecene as well as on the filtration of water-in-oil Pickering emulsions stabilized with two different types of silica nanoparticles (differing in particle hydrophobicity) using an organic solvent nanofiltration membrane was experimentally investigated. While a temperature increase led to an increase in flux, the influence of the particle type was negligible. Furthermore, for the first time, a mathematical model to describe Pickering emulsion filtration was successfully developed. The flux of solvent through the membrane could be predicted via the solution-diffusion model including an Arrhenius-type relationship to describe the temperature dependency of the diffusion coefficient. Implementing this into a resistance in series model the Pickering emulsion filtration behavior could be predicted with high accuracy. These results are indispensable for the optimal process design for Pickering emulsion application in catalytic multiphase systems.