Stability of mass transfer parameters in critical regimes of two-phase flows

Stability of fractional separation parameters has been revealed in separation practice. Such stability is surprising, because an immense number of particles of various sizes take part in a process with a large number of random factors. Analysis of this phenomenon from the standpoint of statistical approach has explained its existence. A key notion of a statistical system is entropy. It is shown that a mass system evolves into a state corresponding to the maximal entropy value. Whenever fluctuations disturb the equilibrium of a system, its entropy decreases, and non-equilibrium processes return the system into its extreme state. This fact explains the stability of separation parameters.