Interactions between Droplets in Immiscible Liquid Suspensions and the Influence of Surfactants
A. J. Archer, D. N. Sibley, B. D. Goddard
TL;DR
This paper studies how oil droplets interact in water-alcohol mixtures, like in ouzo, and how alcohol stabilizes the droplets by reducing their attraction.
Contribution
A new method using density functional theory to model droplet interactions and surfactant effects in ternary mixtures is introduced.
Findings
Alcohol reduces oil-water interfacial tension, stabilizing oil droplets in water.
The model shows alcohol can make droplet interactions repulsive, preventing merging.
The theory can be extended to model surfactant mixtures without altering bulk thermodynamics.
Abstract
We develop a general method for determining the effective interaction potential between two or more droplets suspended within a fluid phase. Our approach is based on classical density functional theory. Here, we apply the method to determine the interaction potential between oil droplets suspended in water and also consider the influence of adding a third species, alcohol. This ternary mixture is that found in the ouzo beverage. The ouzo system exhibits spontaneous emulsification when the neat spirit is mixed with water. The oil emulsion that forms has been observed to be surprisingly long-lived. Here we show that the alcohol in the system does indeed play a role in making the droplets more stable, by decreasing the oil–water interfacial tension and therefore also the strength of the attractive interactions between droplets. Within our theory, the surfactant nature of the alcohol can be…
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Taxonomy
TopicsPickering emulsions and particle stabilization · Micro and Nano Robotics · Fluid Dynamics and Thin Films