On the steady-state drop size distribution in stirred vessels. Part II: effect of continuous phase viscosity

In Part I1 we used silicon oils with viscosities across six orders of magnitude
to investigated the effect of the dispersed phase viscosity on the DSD
of dilute emulsions. In this study we extended Part I by using three glucose
aqueous solutions to thicken the continuous phases approximately an order
of magnitude while keeping the Power number constant. It was found that
increasing the continuous phase viscosity decreases the maximum drop size
despite having drops well above the Kolmogorov length-scale. Our results
are in disagreement with the mechanistic models for the turbulent inertia
regime. The results were explained using the full turbulent energy spectrum
proposed by Pope 2 instead of the Kolmogorov -5/3 spectrum. Our analysis
revealed that most of the steady-state drop sizes do not fall in the isotropic
turbulence size range.