Surface viscosity foams

Bendure indicates 10 ways to increase foam stability (1) increase bulk liquid viscosity, (2) increase surface viscosity, (3) maintain thick... 

This has been verified for polydimethylsiloxanes added to crude oils. The effect of the dilatational elasticities and viscosities on crude oil by the addition of polydimethylsiloxanes is shown in Table 21-1. Under nonequilibrium conditions, both a high bulk viscosity and a surface viscosity can delay the film thinning and the stretching deformation, which precedes the destruction of a foam. There is another issue that concerns the formation of ordered structures. The development of ordered structures in the surface film may also stabilize the foams. Liquid crystalline phases in surfaces enhance the stability of the foam. 

The superficial gas velocity Og is G/A, where A is the horizontal cross-sectional area of the empty vertical foam column. Also, g is the acceleration of gravity, p is the liquid density, p is the ordinary liquid viscosity and p, is the effective surface viscosity. 

As is known, if one blows air bubbles in pure water, no foam is formed. On the other hand, if a detergent or protein (amphiphile) is present in the system, adsorbed surfactant molecules at the interface produce foam or soap bubble. Foam can be characterized as a coarse dispersion of a gas in a liquid, where the gas is the major phase volume. The foam, or the lamina of liquid, will tend to contract due to its surface tension, and a low surface tension would thus be expected to be a necessary requirement for good foam-forming property. Furthermore, in order to be able to stabilize the lamina, it should be able to maintain slight differences of tension in its different regions. Therefore, it is also clear that a pure liquid, which has constant surface tension, cannot meet this requirement. The stability of such foams or bubbles has been related to monomolecular film structures and stability. For instance, foam stability has been shown to be related to surface elasticity or surface viscosity, qs, besides other interfacial forces. 

The foam drainage, surface viscosity, and bubble size distributions have been reported for different systems consisting of detergents and proteins. Foam drainage was investigated by using an incident light interference microscope technique. 

The surface and bulk viscosities not only reduce the draining rate of the lamella but also help in restoration against mechanical, thermal, or chemical shocks. The highest foam stability is associated with appreciable surface viscosity (qs) and yield value. 

Surface viscosity is reduced (thus destabilizing the foam films). 

The foam stability of /3-cas foams progressively decreased with added Tween 20. In contrast, there was a very sharp transition in equilibrium film thickness at R = 0.5. Surprisingly, surface diffusion of /3-cas was not detected at any R value in these films. This was unexpected since it has been reported that adsorbed layers of /3-cas are characterized by a very low surface viscosity [3], signifying that protein-protein interactions in /3-cas films are very weak. We had expected to observe surface diffusion either in the films stabilized by... 

If the liquid laminae of a foam system can be converted to impermeable solid membranes, the film viscosity can be regarded as having become infinite, and the resulting solid foam will be permanent. Likewise, if the laminae are composed of a gingham plastic or a thixotrope, the foam will be permanently stable for bubbles whose buoyancy does not permit exceeding the yield stress. For other non-newtonian fluids, however, and for all newtonian ones, no matter how viscous, the viscosity can only delay but never prevent foam disappearance. The popular theory, held since the days of Plateau, that foam life is proportional to surface viscosity and inversely proportional to interfacial tension, is not correct, according to Biker-man (op. cit., p. 161), who points out that it is contradicted by experiment. 

Bendure indicates 10 ways to increase foam stability (1) increase bulk liquid viscosity, (2) increase surface viscosity, (3) maintain thick walls (higher liquid-to-gas ratio), (4) reduce liquid surface tension, (5) increase surface elasticity, (6) increase surface concentration, (7) reduce surfactant-adsorption rate, (8) prevent liquid evaporation, (9) avoid mechanical stresses, and (10) eliminate foam inhibitors. Obviously, the reverse of each of these actions, when possible, is a way to control and break foam. 

A high bulk liquid viscosity simply retards the rate of foam collapse. High surface viscosity, however, involves strong retardation of bulk liquid flow close to the surfaces and, consequently, the drainage of thick films is considerably more rapid than that of thin films, which facilitates the attainment of a uniform film thickness. 

Foaming capability relates to both foam formation and foam persistence. Surface tension lowering is necessary, but not sufficient. Other important factors include surface elasticity, surface viscosity, and disjoining pressure [303], Considering stabil-... 

The stability of foams in constraining media, such as porous media, is much more complicated. Some combination of surface elasticity, surface viscosity and disjoining pressure is still needed, but the specific requirements for an effective foam in porous media remain elusive, partly because little relevant information is available and partly because what information there is appears to be somewhat conflicting. For example, both direct [304] and inverse [305] correlations have been found between surface elasticity and foam stability and performance in porous media. Overall, it is generally found that the effectiveness of foams in porous media is not reliably predicted based on bulk physical properties or on bulk foam measurements. Instead, it tends to be more useful to study the foaming properties in porous media at various laboratory scales micro-, meso-, and macro-scale. 

To the extent that viscosity and surface viscosity influence foam stability, one would predict that stability would vary according to the effect of temperature on the viscosity. Thus some petroleum industry processes exhibit serious foaming problems at low process temperatures, which disappear at higher temperatures. Ross and Morrison [25] cite some examples of petroleum foams that become markedly less stable above a narrow temperature range that may be an interfacial analogue of a melting point. 

Adamson [15] and Miller et al. [410] illustrate some techniques for measuring surface shear viscosity. Further details on the principles, measurement and applications to foam stability of interfacial viscosity are reviewed by Wasan et al. [301,412], It should be noted that most experimental studies deal with the bulk and surface viscosities of bulk solution rather than the rheology of films themselves. 

Any additives that can act to reduce the viscosity of foam films, and thereby increase the liquid drainage rate, will tend to reduce foam stability as a result. This includes any chemicals that can reduce surface viscosity and/or surface elasticity. Some alcohols can be use to produce these effects. 

In conclusion we will note that the main difference between aqueous emulsion films and foam films involves the dependences of the various parameters of these films (potential of the diffuse double electric layer, surfactant adsorption, surface viscosity, etc.) on the polarity of the organic phase, the distribution of the emulsifier between water and organic phase and the relatively low, as compared to the water/air interface, interfacial tension. 

In the absence of special additives in the foaming solution that increase the surface viscosity, its value is r s 10"7 Pa m s [30,36,40]. If this value is used in the above formula together with T] = 10 3 Pa s, then r 500 pm. Hence, a complete tangential border immobility... 

Trapeznikov [46] indicate that the transition temperature of a 0.1% NaDoS solution is raised from 31°C to 38°C when the dodecanol concentration is increased from 0.001 to 0.1%. It is suggested that the sharp reduction of surface viscosity is the reason for increase in rate of foam drainage. 

Eqs. (5.34-5.36), (5.38), (5.42), (5.44) and (5.46) describe the process of foam drainage at complete immobility of border surfaces. Calculation of drainage rate with the correction p being a function of surface viscosity is possible only by numerical methods. 

With temperature lowering the drainage rate increases despite of the increase in foaming solution viscosity. This can be explained by the fact that with the temperature lowering not only viscosity but surface tension also increases, leading to expansion of foam bubbles and increase in drainage rate, according to Eq. (5.60). 

Indeed, a direct relationship between the lifetimes of films and foams and the mechanical properties of the adsorption layers has been proven to exist [e.g. 13,39,61-63], A decrease in stability with the increase in surface viscosity and layer strength has been reported in some earlier works. The structural-mechanical factor in the various systems, for instance, in multilayer stratified films, protein systems, liquid crystals, could act in either directions it might stabilise or destabilise them. Hence, quantitative data about the effect of this factor on the kinetics of thinning, ability (or inability) to form equilibrium films, especially black films, response to the external local disturbances, etc. could be derived only when it is considered along with the other stabilising (kinetic and thermodynamic) factors. Similar quantitative relations have not been established yet. Evidence on this influence can be found in [e.g. 2,13,39,44,63-65]. 

A quantitative dependence of the foam expansion ratio on the surfactant concentration, solution viscosity, surface viscosity and height of the foam column in a continuously generated foam has been reported in [83], Lowering the rate of gas supply led to an increase in... 

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