Immiscible Liquid-Liquid Flow in Coiled Tube

Immiscible liquid-liquid flows are frequently encountered in process industries such as petroleum, chemical, polymer and pharmaceutical. Energy efficient designs of such process are requisites for any process plant. However, very few research works have been reported in literature for coiled tubular flow reactors. Therefore, present experimental study was conducted to gain insight of the flows of different immiscible liquids flowing in coiled tube. Effect of ratio of viscosities of liquids and curvature of coiled tube on the pressure drop has been reported here. Different flow patterns were observed and mapped at various volume fractions of liquids. This work may help in better understanding of the hydrodynamics of liquid-liquid flows in equipment having curved geometries which are widely used in industries as reactors, heat exchangers, etc. Energy losses in such devices can be estimated and thus will be helpful in designing equipment in various process plants.