Quaternary water in oil microemulsions. 1. Effect of alcohol chain length and concentration on droplet size and exchange of material between droplets

Journal Article · Thu Nov 14 04:00:00 EST 1991 · Journal of Physical Chemistry; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/j100176a090· OSTI ID:7017457

Lang, J; Lalem, N; Zana, R ^[1]

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1. Inst. Charles Sadron (France)

Water solubility, electrical conductivity, and time-resolved fluorescence quenching measurements have been performed in water/chlorobenzene/cationic surfactants/1-alcohol water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsions in order to investigate the effect of alcohol chain length and concentration on various properties of these systems: surfactant aggregation number, N, per aggregate; radius, R{sub w}, of the droplet water core; intensity of attractive interdroplet interactions; onset of percolation of electrical conductivity; and rate constant, k{sub e}, for the exchange of material between droplets through collisions with temporary merging. The variations of these properties with the molar concentration ratio {omega} = (water)/(surfactant) for alcohols of increasing chain length are strikingly similar to those found when investigating the effect of surfactant chain length. In particular, N and R{sub w} and the intensity of attractive interactions decrease when the alcohol chain length increases as predicted by current theory of the stability of w/o microemulsions. For a series of microemulsions based on alkyltrimethylammonium bromide surfactants, the water solubility results indicate that the stability of the microemulsions containing short chain alcohols (propanol, butanol) is determined by the attractive interdroplet interactions. The results give support to the mechanism postulated for electrical conductivity above the percolation threshold, namely, motion of counterions through transient water tubes formed in the droplet clusters present in the systems. Finally, it is shown that simple electrical conductivity and water solubility measurements can yield of quantitative information about the investigated microemulsions.

• OSTI ID: 7017457
• Journal Information: Journal of Physical Chemistry; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Physical Chemistry; (United States) Vol. 95:23; ISSN 0022-3654; ISSN JPCHA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300 -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400201* -- Chemical & Physicochemical Properties
AROMATICS
CATIONS
CHARGED PARTICLES
CHLORINATED AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
COLLOIDS
DATA
DISPERSIONS
DROPLETS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY
EMULSIONS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY
HALOGENATED AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
IONS
MASS TRANSFER
MICROEMULSIONS
NUMERICAL DATA
OILS
ORGANIC CHLORINE COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PARTICLE SIZE
PARTICLES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
QUANTITY RATIO
QUENCHING
RESOLUTION
SIZE
SOLUBILITY
SPECTROSCOPY
SURFACTANTS
TIME RESOLUTION
TIMING PROPERTIES
WATER