Foam in the hole is an emulsion of air or gas in water, but at the flowline a proper foam breaks to a mixture of droplets of water in an air stream. With proper foam breaking at the end of the flowline, there is a quickly separating mixture of gas or air with a small amount of water and a small skim of foam (Figure 1.). During use of a shale shaker, the screen will generally appear ‘‘wet’’ with a skim of foam. This is the result of the chemistry of the system, and while it appears wet with foam, the water volume is very small.
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