In order to achieve the goals of this project, a pilot-scale set-up including a mixer and a shallow-layer settler was designed and built. The liquid-liquid system water-querosene was used in all the experiments, the mixer being fed with a mixture with 50% of each component. The experiments allowed:
i. The measure of the length and thickness of the dispersion wedge formed along the settler for different agitation speeds of the mixer, under both steady-state and transient conditions;
ii. The measure of the drop-size distributions at three different sections of the dispersion wedge, using an innovative, non-invasive, image technique previously developed by Ribeiro (2002); this technique allowed the capture, in real time, of images of the drops at the active interface by means of a digital video camera equipped with an optical objective system and an adequate lightning set-up:
iii. The measurement of drop velocities along the active interface at the same sections of the wedge;
iv. The sketching of drop trajectories, using solid particles as tracers at the interface.
The worth of the results, measure both as representatively and reproducibility, was established by statistical techniques performed on the drop diameter measurements obtained.