High intensity ultrasound is being used in various applications in industry, such as healthcare, food science, mechanical cleaning, etc. It has proven to be a truly diverse approach that has not yet been explored for all of its uses. It is a powerful tool for mixing to create meta-stable emulsions when considering lyophobic solutions. Lyophobic colloids have no attraction between the dispersed particle and the dispersing medium. Stable lyophobic emulsions are difficult to create; they become even more difficult when the fluids are placed in a dynamic scenario in which energy is already causing motion. High intensity focused ultrasound can be proven to be an efficient method of creating a lyophobic emulsion. The ultrasound is transmitted from the piezoelectric material to the fluid through a resonant body called a sonotrode. The understanding of how to best process such emulsions in-flow is herein advanced through the use of theory, simulation, and experiments.
Two applications for the benefits of lyophobic emulsions will be discussed. The first being biodiesel production in which the colloid is used directly to create the final product. The other being the cleaning of metal chips in which the emulsion will be the byproduct. Investigations into this byproduct will be performed to help determine the effectiveness of the cleaning technology. Using ultrasonic emulsifiers has the benefit of producing lyophobic emulsions using minimal energy and time with promising trends for scaling to industrial production processes.
