Leslie Labarre
MSc (Diplôme d’Ingénieur) – Chemical Engineering specialised in Polymer sciences at ECPM (European school of Chemistry, Polymers and materials sciences) & University of Strasbourg
PhD Researcher
Sponsor: EPSRC
School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom
PhD Project Background
Project Title: Study of foam thixotropy in a microchannel
The foam rheology is a key parameter to predict the behaviour of foam in a production cycle in industry. It is important to identify the effect of different parameters (nature of the surfactant, viscosity of the continuous phase…) on the foam rheology. This rheology can be studied whether by flowing the foam through a glass column and measuring different parameters or by analysing the foam using a rheometer and applying different test methods on your sample in certain geometry to determine its viscoelastic properties. However, these two methods present limitations as the foam structure evolves constantly over time due to the destabilising phenomena occurring in its structure simultaneously. In the last two decades, microfluidics has been exploited to generate and study aqueous foams in a wide range of application from enhanced oil recovery to biomedical application. In the literature, one of the main focuses has been given to the effect of different parameters such as the fluid viscoelasticity on the bubble formation process. Least attention has been given to the impact of these parameters on the resulting foam properties. This work presents an attempt to study foam thixotropy in a microfluidic device. The objective is to map rheological properties by studying the foam behaviour in a microchannel.