Direct force measurements liquid interfaces

Direct Force Measurement at Liquid/Liquid Interfaces... 

Dispersion behaviour in systems with liquid/liquid or liquid/gas interfaces (i.e. droplet or bubbles) has traditionally been described in terms of rheological properties, wetting properties, including contact angle and interfacial tensions, or phase behaviour and stability measurements. Direct force measurements provide a means to fundamentally probe the interactions between deformable interfaces that significantly impact the dispersion (or emulsion) behaviour. 

DIRECT FORCE MEASUREMENT AT UQUID/LIQUID INTERFACES... 

A variety of interaction behaviours can be observed between liquid/liquid interfaces based on the types of colloidal forces present. In general, they can be separated into static and dynamic forces. Static forces include electrostatic, steric, van der Waals and hydrophobic forces, relevant to stable shelf life and coalescence of emulsions or dispersions. Dynamic forces arise ftom flow in the system, for instance during shear of an emulsion or dispersion. EHrect force measurements tend to center on static force measurements, and while there is a large body of work on the study of film drainage between both liquid or solid interfaces, there are very few direct force measurements in the dynamic range between liquid interfaces. Below are general descriptions of some of the types of force observed and brief discussions of their origins. 

Trisiloxane surfactants containing polyethyleneoxide chains of different lengths, known as superwetters, have been studied by soft-contact AFM imaging and direct force measurements at the solid-liquid interface, using different substrates [50]. The surface aggregate structures for these siloxane surfactants correlate with those of their hydrocarbon-based equivalents and resemble bulk structures. 

Surface forces measurement is a unique tool for surface characterization. It can directly monitor the distance (D) dependence of surface properties, which is difficult to obtain by other techniques. One of the simplest examples is the case of the electric double-layer force. The repulsion observed between charged surfaces describes the counterion distribution in the vicinity of surfaces and is known as the electric double-layer force (repulsion). In a similar manner, we should be able to study various, more complex surface phenomena and obtain new insight into them. Indeed, based on observation by surface forces measurement and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, we have found the formation of a novel molecular architecture, an alcohol macrocluster, at the solid-liquid interface. 

Magnetic resonance imaging permitted direct observation of the liquid hold-up in monolith channels in a noninvasive manner. As shown in Fig. 8.14, the film thickness - and therefore the wetting of the channel wall and the liquid hold-up -increase nonlinearly with the flow rate. This is in agreement with a hydrodynamic model, based on the Navier-Stokes equations for laminar flow and full-slip assumption at the gas-liquid interface. Even at superficial velocities of 4 cm s-1, the liquid occupies not more than 15 % of the free channel cross-sectional area. This relates to about 10 % of the total reactor volume. Van Baten, Ellenberger and Krishna [21] measured the liquid hold-up of katapak-S . Due to the capillary forces, the liquid almost completely fills the volume between the catalyst particles in the tea bags (about 20 % of the total reactor volume) even at liquid flow rates of 0.2 cm s-1 (Fig. 8.15). The formation of films and rivulets in the open channels of the structure cause the further slight increase of the hold-up. 

In spite of the obvious technological importance, surface charging and surface electric field have only recently been directly observed in liquid crystals [52] using AFM in the force spectroscopy mode. In this section, we briefly describe the experiments, that enabled a direct measurement of the surface charge and the Debye screening length of the liquid crystal-solid interface. 

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