A novel method to separate organic compounds through ultrasonic atomization

Ethanol and surfactants were enriched from the aqueous solutions through ultrasonic atomization at ambient temperature. Liquid particles produced with irradiation of 2.4 MHz ultrasound had diameters less than 10 mu m. High enrichment ratio was obtained at lower concentration range and the ratio decreased with increasing the solute concentration. For ethanol enrichment, energy input to the oscillator was much smaller than the latent heat of the separated solution. Thus it is expected that energy requirement of this separation is smaller than distillation. Drop size distribution was measured to characterize the atomization behaviour of solutions. Enrichment ratio of an anionic surfactant, DBS-Na was remarkably improved by adding KCl to the solution. The result indicated that the significance of surface adsorption to the separation of nonvolatile substances. Production of concentrated Japanese rice wine was presented as a practial application.