Method and composition for cleaning tubular systems employing moving three-phase contact lines

摘要

A method, composition and apparatus for cleaning an internal surface of a narrow diameter channel. The method includes: i) flowing a liquid cleaning medium and a gas through the internal channel under one or more flow regimes that creates surface flow entities in contact with and sliding along the surface of the channel, said surface flow entities having three-phase contact lines and associated menisci, said surface flow entities detaching contaminants with which they come in contact from the internal surface of the channel; ii) rinsing the internal surface of the channel to remove residual liquid cleaning medium and detached contaminants from the channel; wherein during step i): the detachment of contaminants from the internal surface of the channel is produced by a sweeping of the internal surface of the internal channel with the three-phase contact lines of the surface flow entities, the cleaning medium is not predispersed in the gas before entering the channel, and less that 10% of the surface of the channel is covered by a contiguous annular film.