Study of the High-Gravity Foam Fractionation Device and Its Fractionation Performance

The traditional foam fractionation process has faced significant limitations in industrial applications due to uneven bubble distribution, poor stability, limited gas–liquid interface mass transfer, and low fractionation efficiency. In this study, the high-efficiency mass transfer characteristics of high-gravity technology are innovatively applied to the foam fractionation process and develop a new type of high-gravity foam fractionation device. Using the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the target substance, the impacts of high-gravity field on foam behavior and foam fractionation performance are further discussed, along with its fundamental principle. The findings indicate that, under optimal operating conditions, the bubble distribution is more uniform and stable and the average diameter of bubbles produced by the device is reduced to 175 μm. The recovery rate and enrichment ratio achieved 95.87% and 68.20, respectively, representing improvements of 73.58% and 63.12% compared to those of normal-gravity foam fractionation devices. By intensifying the interfacial adsorption and mass transfer processes, high-gravity technology breaks through the bottleneck of traditional foam fractionation methods and enables the high-efficiency fractionation of target substances. This advancement provides a new perspective for the future development of foam fractionation processes and the broader application of high-gravity technology in the domain of separation science.