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 00:00:00 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]

---

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), Vol. 95:23; ISSN 0022-3654
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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