SAXS and SANS studies of surfactants and reverse micelles in supercritical CO{sub 2}
Surfactants promise to extend the applicability of supercritical CO{sub 2} (SC-CO{sub 2}) to processing of insoluble materials such as polymers and aqueous systems. In this short paper the authors summarize the techniques for studying surfactants and reverse micelles in SC-CO{sub 2} using SAXS and SANS; they will describe the scattering instruments and the pressure cells for conducting these studies; they will describe the types of measurement that yield the desired characterizations; they will describe the methods of data analysis and interpretation; and they will provide illustrative results from this laboratory. Industry seeks to replace common organic solvents now used in many reaction and separation processes; SC-CO{sub 2} is a potential solvent substitute widely favored by both government and industry. The currently available surfactants are limited in number and performance. In ongoing work the authors are coupling their SAXS and SANS scattering studies with complementary molecular simulations in efforts to understand, at a molecular level, what surfactant characteristics lead to improved performance. They hope that superior surfactants for use in SC-CO{sub 2} can be designed and synthesized based on this new level of understanding.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States); National Science Foundation, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-96OR22464
- OSTI ID:
- 463579
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970587-1; ON: DE97003667; TRN: 97:009886
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 4. international symposium on supercritical fluids, Sendai (Japan), 11-14 May 1997; Other Information: PBD: [1997]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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